


Smiles to Go

by Shay_Fae



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 1970s, ALL THE GAY, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Angst, F/F, Falling In Love, Female Sherlock Holmes/Female John Watson, Femlock, High School, New York City
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:18:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6990784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shay_Fae/pseuds/Shay_Fae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in 1972 New York City during the height of the Feminist Movement.</p><p>Joan Watson is trying to change the world. Sherlock Holmes is just trying to get out of school alive. Neither of them are stable or healthy or capable of normal. But they try. </p><p>A love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all. Are you ready to begin a wonderful adventure? I do hope so.
> 
> This story is set in the 1970's and, as such, comes with a whole host of warnings. There will be language that is not okay. There will be violence that is not dealt with appropriately. There will be terms used that should never be said today. There will be laws that should never have been laws. All of this is unpleasant and upsetting and potentially triggering so take care of yourself before anything else. I am always open and available to talk if something in this story really upsets you. 
> 
> On the subject of warnings, I am choosing to not use very many tags in the interest of keeping some things a secret. Tags will be updated as the story progresses and I will always put warnings at the beginning of chapters. That said, if you are really concerned about something, my email is in my profile and we can talk. 
> 
> With all that, I'm loving writing this story and I hope you'll love reading it. We need more femlock, be the change you wish to see in the world and all that. Love you all. Kisses!  
> \- Shay

“First day of school tomorrow,” Mycroft said carefully from across the tiny kitchen table. It wasn’t all that late, just a bit past ten, and the windows were open to let the last of the summer air filter into the cramped apartment. Across the way, their neighbor had his radio on and the soft notes of “Oh Girl” drifted in with the wind.

Sherlock shivered in her tank top and glanced up from her Chinese takeout container. Normally Mycroft wasn’t home yet, was still scraping in a few extra overtime hours, but tonight he’d even picked up the food himself and carried it home in oily paper bags.

“You have everything you need?” he checked, his chopsticks lying still inside his chicken and broccoli. Sherlock rolled her eyes and then immediately wished she hadn’t; their moldy, crumbling ceilings always put her on edge. “Knapsack, papers-“

“Yes,” she said jut to shut him up. Her knapsack from last year was sitting in her tiny room, not remotely packed for tomorrow.

“Need me to wake you up any particular time?” Mycroft asked, returning to his meal. Her own carton sat nearly untouched before her, barely picked at, while her brother’s gaped with only a few pieces left. Two years ago she would have made a joke but those had stopped being funny once they’d moved out here. Now, Mycroft nearly two stones lighter and still dropping, Sherlock didn’t begrudge him any calories.

Sherlock shook her head, glancing down at her hands. Her cuticles were chewed to the quick, nervous pedestrian habit, and they nauseated her too. Their bloody lives nauseated her. “I’m going in early,” she said. “It seemed to work best in avoiding the assailants last year.”

Mycroft shifted uncomfortably. “Sherlock, if those girls bother you again, tell me and I’ll-“

“You’ll what?” she taunted, spine tense. “Report them to the administration? Ask for a meeting with the principal with you as my legal guardian?”

It was a low blow and they both knew it. Mycroft looked so guilty that for a brief flash, Sherlock regretted her words. But then she watched her brother put his guards back up, mask sliding into place and she remembered why they didn’t eat dinner together very often. “Sherlock-“

“No, forget it,” she sighed, standing up. She tugged down her vest from where it had ridden up on her stomach and pushed her untouched carton towards Mycroft with more gentleness than she’d shown all evening. “Thank you for eating with me. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Sherlock,” Mycroft murmured wearily, the air of a man fully aware of his failures and powerless to fix them. The Chi-Lites were crooning _I've got to get away from here_ while Sherlock watched her brother push his hair back from his forehead and rub at his eyes. Every inch of her knew that this version of her brother, this defeated, subservient, small version of her power-hungry brother was entirely her fault but she pushed it down as best she could and wandered off to bed. It never did her much good to dwell on it.

 

Bushwick Public High School was disgusting all year round but, for the first day, they always made some sort of effort scrubbing at the front steps and moving the drug dealers at least two feet off the property. Cars of all sorts were pulling up to the front and students streamed in from the direction of the train, laughing and yelling for each other through the crowd.

Sherlock tugged self-consciously at her skirt. She’d overslept and had made the mistake of grabbing whatever clothes Mycroft threw at her so now she was in a checkered skirt and a top too green for her liking instead of her preferred jeans. Mycroft always liked to see her dressed more “feminine” and what did she care? After all it was just transport. Nothing that happened to this body was really ever in her control anyway.

Someone pushed at her as she shouldered her way inside and she didn’t turn around to see who it was. It didn’t matter. Barely anyone in the school knew who she was and those who did didn’t like her very much. All she needed right now was just to put some books in a locker, grab her schedule from the office and get the hell out of these hallways.

As usual her mind was working miles ahead of her, cataloging. Nancy Washington had gotten a bob, which was a pretty good indicator that by Wednesday another twenty girls would have one too. Jeremy Ricks had gotten a girl pregnant over the summer, wouldn’t fatherhood be fun for a jock, and was thinking about quitting the football team. The lockers were a brand new painted teal and somehow in the hour since the doors had opened there were already fliers up on the wall.

Sherlock wandered over to the bulletin board to take a look at them. Welcome back, school play, lunch announcements, science club, all the usuals. And then, right in the middle in bright purple, a giant sign announcing the very first meeting of the Young Feminists Club Tuesday night. Sherlock smirked. A feminists club? Who needed something as ridiculous as that? She didn’t know much about the movement, had only given the march that June a cursory glance in the paper, but she knew enough to recognize a bunch of shrill girls yelling at a system that would never change. Who, in their right mind, would join a feminist’s club?

“Hey!” a voice chirped out by her ear and Sherlock whirled around, arms raised protectively, right before they landed on Joan Watson’s chest. “Checking out the sign, are you?”

Sherlock blinked at the girl in front of her, snatching her hands back before they could do any damage. Joan's blonde hair was pulled back tightly from her face and she’d cut the sleeves off a t-shirt, jeans rolled up at the bottom. In short, she was every bit as beautiful as she’d been the whole of last year- well, whatever Sherlock had been able to see of her from two rows behind her in Chemistry.

“You should come!” Joan grinned and Sherlock remembered suddenly that they were talking about a sign. She was having an actual conversation with Joan Watson. Granted, she hadn’t said anything yet but when she did, it’d be memorable. “We’re meeting tomorrow after school in room 408. I’m Joan, by the way,” she said, offering her left hand for a shake.

“I know,” Sherlock blurted out unthinking, just staring at the hand. “We had chemistry together last year.”

“Oh fuck,” Joan cried, biting her lip, and Sherlock swallowed a giggle at the curse. “Sorry. I’m such a spaz. Last year was a bit rough for me and, fuck it, I’m sorry,” she said, scrubbing a hand through her hair. “I swear I’m usually good with names-“

“It’s Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes,” she filled in, finally reaching out to shake Joan’s hand.

“Sherlock, got it,” Joan nodded before breaking out in a smile. “Oh yeah I totally remember you. You’re the kid who figured out that Mr. Rockland was sleeping with Janet and then told everyone right in the middle of class, yeah?”

“I mean, it was pretty obvious-“ Sherlock started before Joan cut her off with pure enthusiasm.

 “Then you should definitely come to our meeting! That was some really good patriarchal bullshit takedown! Janet was totally stuck. Will I see you there?”

Who even talked like that? Who said words like ‘patriarchal takedown’ in an actual sentence? This whole enterprise was a hilarious disaster poised to explode and yet here Sherlock was, nodded before she could stop herself, _like a regular idiot_ .

Joan only grinned wider. “Ace! I’ll see you there, Sherlock!” she called as she ran down the hall to catch up with a group of girls in jean jackets who thumped her on the back and started laughing together about something as they made their way down the hall. _Dykes_ her brain whispered, supplying the title everyone else in the school applied to them, and Sherlock realized just who made and joined feminists clubs. Lesbians.

_And you_ , she reminded herself in a stunned sort of voice. _You just joined a feminist club_.

 

The rest of the day went by in something of a haze with her brain alternating between tracks of _Joan Watson spoke to me_ and _Fuck, she tricked me into agreeing to go to a feminist meeting_.

It wasn’t even like she _liked_ Watson. She wasn’t a dyke or anything like that. Joan was just…cool. She was bad. She listened to The New York Dolls and Suicide and hung out with the girls who skipped school and spray-painted slogans on the brick wall outside. And yet, she was a total paper shaker. She turned her homework in on time and tutored some of the eight graders and she never once pushed anyone in the halls.

Joan Watson was, in short, an enigma. A puzzle that did pleasant things to her heart-rate. The only person that could get her to stay after school and listen to a bunch of angry lesbians rage against a deaf system.

Mycroft wasn’t home when Sherlock walked into the apartment and she hadn’t expected him to be. Their three room apartment always felt largest in these few hours alone and she used them carefully. First she did her homework. She’d never done it back when she’d been at boarding school, back when they hadn’t lived here, but now the need to stay out of the principle’s office overrode the insane boredom that came with basic math.

At eight, she cooked up some noodles with cheese, ate a little more than a fourth, and set the rest aside in a plastic tin in the fridge for when Mycroft came home. She lit matchboxes on fire from nine to eleven just to see which kind of cardboard burned faster, and crawled into bed at twelve so she could avoid her brother when he came in at twelve thirty, sweaty and exhausted, to check on her.

He’d always done this, even when they lived back in the house she still mentally called ‘home.’ Back before he’d gone away to university and everything had fallen apart, he’d always come in to check on her before going to sleep himself.

When she’d been four, it had been a great game. She’d let Mummy tuck her in and stroke at her hair a bit but never let herself fall asleep until Mycroft came in. Then, like clockwork, she’d turn to him with big wide eyes and whisper _can’t sleep, Mikey_ until the eleven-year old came in to tell a story at the edge of her bed. When she was eleven, Mycroft rarely ever found her sleeping, instead playing with test tubes and fires or reading some tome or another, and she’d greet him with a _Get out, you idiot!_

Now, at sixteen, she feigned sleep when he opened her door, both of them knowing she wasn’t fooling anyone, but Mycroft only sighed, whispered a soft ‘good-night’ and closed the door behind him. Something in Sherlock felt loose and unbolted so she rattled around in her night table for a sleeping pill and swallowed it dry before turning over and trying for good dreams.

 

Tuesday class could not have gone by fast enough before Sherlock found herself putting her books away at four and glancing down the emptying hallways. She could just leave. Joan probably talked to a million people yesterday about the meeting. There was nothing stopping her from going home right now.

Except, what was she going to do at home? Burn more matchboxes? Cook more pasta like the good housewife she was slowly becoming? The meeting could, at the very least, make for interesting people watching. If nothing else, it was a half-decent distraction from her own descent into madness. So, with a final slam of her locker, she made her way up to the fourth floor.

She heard the meeting before she saw it, the door of 408 open and florescent light pouring out into the hall. The room was a jumble of noise, a madhouse of girls- and one or two boys- all sitting on top and around desks and talking with each other. Sherlock recognized a few of the school dykes in their collared shirts neatly pressed over flaired jeans, but there were many more she couldn’t place so easily- girls in checkered skirts and short dressed with headbands and some people were perched on the window smoking out of it.

She was just about to turn around and leave when a voice boomed out from the front of the room and everyone turned to see Joan Watson on the teacher’s desk. Her hair was out, a blonde nest around her face, and her blue eyes caught Sherlock’s by the door and she beamed.

“Hi everyone!” she called out. “Welcome to our very first Young Feminist’s meeting!”

The room let out a giant cheer and Sherlock felt herself carried away with it, pushed deeper into the room as she clung onto her biology textbook for dear life. Joan was a live wire, her black boots digging into the wood, and she couldn’t look away.

“So um, as a lot of you know, this June a bunch of us marched on Washington for Title IX-“ Joan started before she was cut off again by an enormous cheer. Sherlock felt her head swimming. How did all of them know what that meant?

“Right,” Joan laughed. “So yeah, like me, Marcie, Kelsie and like a bunch of other people marched on Washington for Title IX and fuck yeah, it passed,” another wild cheer. “But while we were there, we met these really bomb women from like Greenwich village who have this massive feminist’s club at their school. So we figured, we oughta start one too.

“We’re starting this club for a lot of reasons. Mostly, because we need to. Because no one stands up for women in this country. Because if we do not protect ourselves, there is no one else who will. Because we are sick of being treated like children only to have our rights and decisions ripped from our own hands.”

The crowd, it seemed, was willing to cheer at anything Joan said. Sherlock could hardly blame them, despite the fact that Joan's speech seemed more like of a mess of quotes than anything grandly penned. She’d barely taken her eyes off the blonde the whole time, her arms just a mess of gooseflesh. But Joan wasn’t done.

“A lot of you read what Sally Kempton said last year. It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head. It’s hard to stop thinking of ourselves the way men wants us to. But we’re better than this. How good does a female athlete have to be before we just call her an athlete? How good does a woman have to be before she gets the same rights as anybody else? We all in the school get stuck taking Home Ec while the boys gets physics. We get shuttled off to be teachers and mothers while they get to be doctors, lawyers, engineers. We deserve better. And the only way we’ll get better is by working together.

“Gloria Steinem-“

“Amen!” someone called out from the back and Joan grinned.

“Gloria said, at the National Women’s Political Caucus just last year, ‘This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution.’ And the revolution starts with us. Yeah, we start small. We have a few marches, vandalize some messed up posters. But we do it loudly. We show these boys they don’t run this school. That we are every bit as smart and as capable as they are. And we start now!”

The room erupted. Joan was standing there with a wild hyena of a grin while the girls in the room hooted and banged on their desks. Sherlock could only stare.

Yes, it didn’t make any sense that she had to take sewing for two years. Yes, she’d had to claw her way into chemistry and bio. Yes it wasn’t fair but what was? Life wasn’t fair- not for her and not for anyone. It wasn’t something you could change. It just _was._

“Right so,” Joan was still talking when Sherlock tuned back in, “we were thinking the club could like organize and do marches with other groups. But maybe we could also run events here? We could do sit ins and put up fliers-

“- and fuck up the man!” someone yelled out and everyone laughed. Joan giggled and nodded.

“Yeah, that too. Fuck the man,” she agreed. “Right now though Marcie and I have something big we wanna do. So Title IX, which just passed, guaranteed complete and total educational equality, including athletics. We wanna get Bushwick to start a women’s soccer team.”

There was a murmur through the crowd at this and Sherlock, who had never given a thought to sports in her entire life, found herself suddenly on edge about the whole enterprise.

“So,” Joan called out. “Who’s on board?”

There was a beat before a few girls at the front roared, “Fucking A!” and the room echoed it.

“Right!” Joan roared back. “Okay let’s get to organizing. So we’ll need to make a petition-“

As the room mobilized and started talking, with Kelsie writing a bullet-point plan out on the board, Sherlock found herself suddenly adrift. Nothing about that had been what she’d thought it’d be. Back in ninth grade, back when she’d still been in private boarding school, her French teacher Ms. Balistrade had told the class pointedly that feminists were just angry lesbians who wants to be men.

They’d been sitting there, fourteen year old girls in their pressed uniform skirts dutifully faced forward, when Lauren Hillcot had expressed anger at the film they were meant to be watching. How was this educational, she ranted, watching a movie about an abused woman who stays with her husband? How was it okay to sit here and learn from a scared women with a black eye?

Sherlock’s hand had immediately gone to her own thigh where she was hiding a kidney-shaped bruise of her own beneath her starched skirt but no one had noticed. Everyone was riveted to the site of Ms. Balistrade ordering Lauren to the principle before turning to the class and saying _This is not how we fix things in this country, girls. Men are not the problem. Yes there are a few bad apples but shall we overthrow a system that has protected us for hundreds of years based on the ravings of a few unmentionables? We have our place, our roles, just as men have theirs. Why would any woman want so badly to be a man?_

But this wasn’t that at all. No one here wanted to be men. They just wanted things to be fair. And what on earth was wrong with that?

A warm hand on her arm pulled her out her thoughts and Sherlock found herself turning back from the doorway she’d been escaping through and facing Joan head on. The shorter girl was still a bit flushed from her speech and still grinning madly.

“You came!” she laughed. “I was so sure you wouldn’t. So, what’d you think?”

Sherlock blinked at her. Behind Joan, girls were clumped into groups, planning out flyer ideas and thinking up petitions. But this was not her life. She didn’t make waves. She didn’t fight anyone. She kept her goddamn mouth shut no matter how fucking unfair it was.

“I need to go,” she nearly barked and, in an instant, she’d wrenched her arm out from Joan’s hand and was halfway out the building before the blonde could even shout “wait- Sherlock!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence, swearing, blood (just a little)

Joan was stalking her. There was no other word for it. Ever since the meeting nearly two weeks ago, the girl had been turning up wherever Sherlock was. She was at the table across from her in the library. She was two lockers down from her. Christ, Joan had actually even sat at the far end of the same lunch table as her with Marcie and Kelsie in tow.

Sherlock never made eye contact and, each time Joan opened her mouth to say something, she got up and walked away. It’d gotten so bad she’d taken to eating her lunch in the bathroom or skipping it altogether. Never had she met someone so pigheadedly determined in her life.

And it didn’t even make sense. So she’d gone to a meeting and had never come back. People did that all the time. She didn’t see Joan following anyone else around. Why, of all people, had she been picked as the senior’s pet project?

Avoiding Joan was working well enough until three Wednesdays after the meeting when it all fell to shit. She forgot herself in biology class and accidentally blurted out that Ronda Hawke was cheating in nearly all her classes after being assigned Ronda as a partner for a project. In class, Ronda had only turned a deeper and deeper shade of red as Sherlock spilled her secrets but Sherlock was an even bigger idiot for thinking that was all that would happen.

Instead, after class ended, Ronda and her gaggle of minions herded Sherlock into the girls’ bathroom, waited till it cleared, and backed her up against the porcelain sinks.

“What the fuck did you do that for, you cunt?’ Ronda hissed. “You nearly got me expelled!”

“If you didn’t want to get expelled,” Sherlock pointed out, very reasonably she thought, “then maybe you should have just done your work on your-“

Ronda didn’t wait for her to finish before punching her square in the jaw. Sherlock leaped forward to fight back before finding her arms caught by Ronda’s friends who smashed her head against the sink. She felt her skin split open, the blood clouding her eyes, and then heard one of the girls, Barbra or something, whisper “oh shit.”

“Keep your mouth shut, Sherlock Holmes,” Ronda spit, a slight tremor in her voice, before running out of the bathroom with the girls. Sherlock, for her part, sat on the floor trying to regain her bearings before deciding that maybe she shouldn’t wait at the scene of the crime in case they came back for a second round. So she struggled off the floor and wobbled down the hall to the girls’ locker room to nurse her wounds and clean up the blood before she walked home.

She was just dabbing at it in the mirror when there was a rustle behind her from one of the showers and suddenly a voice said, “Shit, what happened to your face?”

Sherlock spun around violently, still holding two fingers to the cut, to find Joan Watson in nothing but a towel staring openly at her. How had she missed that someone was in here; her injury was making her slow, but Sherlock was too preoccupied to obsess about her deductive slip. Instead, she was grappling with everything in her to keep her gaze fixed firmly to safe areas, like Joan’s face- which was still wet from the shower and home to small droplets gently sliding down her jaw to her long neck-

“Let me take a look at that,” she demanded, coming over, and Sherlock instinctively shied away.

“Leave me alone,” she ordered, curling in on herself. Why was Joan even here? P.E. was over for the day—classes were over for the day- but there she was in all her wet glory, still walking over to Sherlock by the sink.

“Look, you need-“

“I said leave me alone!” she yelled. “For fuck’s sake, stop following me everywhere!”

Joan paused and then sighed irritably. “Oh don’t pull this cliché with me,” she begged and Sherlock just stared at her. “Okay I admit, I’ve been a bit zappy these past few days but can we forget about that for a second and not do that whole thing where I offer to help and you refuse and I offer again and you insult me and then you finally give in? Can we just skip to the part where I help fix the bleeding wound on your forehead, you turkey?”

Sherlock blinked. Slightly overcome, she nodded and Joan smiled gently. “See, was that so hard?” she encouraged, reaching up on tip-toe to retrieve the first-aid kit from atop the lockers and Sherlock was afforded a bloody _spectacular_ view of her upper thighs, just short of anything directly indecent, before she came back down and starting pulling out bandages.

“So what happened to you?” she asked conversationally as she soaked a cotton ball in iodine.

“I don’t think you’re particularly entitled to that information,” Sherlock snapped back, already clenching her fists for the sting. “Seeing as you have been so ‘zappy’ these past few days.”

Joan snorted. “Sounds weird when you say it,” she muttered before reaching out to blot at the cut. Sherlock hissed despite her best efforts not to and Joan grimaced sympathetically before going back to cleaning off the blood.

”I know it looks like I’ve been stalking you,” she started and Sherlock bit back a laugh. “Okay and maybe I have. But I was worried about you. You ran out of the meeting like you’d just got sucker-punched. I don’t know, I thought maybe something I said upset you.”

Sherlock said nothing as Joan wiped the rest of the blood away and reached back into the kit for a band-aide and some ointment. Instead she watched the way Joan’s blonde strands fell over each other, none of them the exact same shade, until they formed a layered collection of something thick and bright.

“So did I?” Joan finally asked pointedly. “Did I upset you?”

Sherlock bit her lip. “Nothing changes,” she said finally and Joan froze with the plaster in her hand. “Men in power will always be in power. They will always make the rules. Nothing we can do will change that.”

“Do you really believe that?” Joan asked gently, leaning forward to stick the band-aide over the wound and Sherlock pointedly did not look down the towel.

“I’ve seen it happen enough times to not bother entertaining false hope,” she bit off and Joan nodded.

“I get it,” she agreed. “It’s tough. But we can change things. That march, this past June, you should’ve seen how many people were there. Women- and men- all just there to fight for basic equality. It takes a long time but things can get better if we keep trying. I believe that with my whole heart.”

“You’re an optimist.”

“You say that like you’re telling me I’ve got cancer,” Joan giggled.

“Both will kill you,” Sherlock shrugged. She was all patched up but they were still standing close to each other by the metal sinks, close enough she could see the light eyelashes framing blue eyes, trained on her own grey ones.

“One hopefully slower than the other,” Joan nodded. There was a long beat where all they did was stare at each other, the air around them nearly crackling, before Joan offered up a small smile.

“So, what did happen to your face?” she asked, moving to start putting away the first aid kit, and the tension broke.

“Ronda Hawke,” Sherlock said, turning to look at Joan’s handiwork in the mirror. It was hard to mess up applying a band-aide but still, Joan had done a better job than she would have of cleaning up the blood. At Joan’s questioning look, she elaborated. “I accidentally let slip that she was cheating off of other students in nearly every class. And she may have taken it very personally. She and all of her friends.”

“Jesus,” Joan whistled. “How’d you know?”

“Obvious,” Sherlock retorted. “Her grades get higher the two weeks following when she’d given allowance and then drop back down, presumably when she no longer has any bribe money. She gets her allowance on the fourteenth which is obvious because she always comes into school on the fifteenth with a new hair accessory and I know her grades because she sits in front of me and I can see them over her shoulders but that’s not cheating.”

“Wow,” Joan whispered. “That is incredible. It’s just like what you did with Janet. Can you do that with anybody?”

“Sure,” Sherlock answered before she could stop herself _you goddamn show off, shut up_. “You’ve just showered because,-“ she scanned Joan as quickly as she could before glancing around the room, noting the bookbag, the sneakers and Joan’s dirty clothes- “you were using the yard for a game of soccer with some of the other dy- I mean girls. Principle Richards hasn’t given you guys permission yet to form a team but the P.E. teacher has a crush on Marcie and she talked him into letting you guys use the field last period when you all are free. How do I know he has a crush on her? Easy, his type is tall blonde girls with large boobs as evident from my P.E. class and Marcie fits the bill. How do I know you were playing soccer? There are concrete pebbles stuck in your sneakers from outside and the way they’re wedged up there looks like they came from kicking on gravel. Plus, I know you like soccer. Why are you still in the locker room? Knowing your personality, you stayed after to clean up the balls and nets and so you were the last one in. That and your clothes have mud stains on the inner arm from carrying several balls.”

There was silence as Joan stared at her with wide eyes before she swallowed. “That is incredible,” she breathed, seemingly content to just stare at Sherlock.

“That’s not what people normally say,” Sherlock murmured.

“Oh? What do they say?”

“Climb it, Tarzan,” Sherlock grinned and Joan giggled back at her. They stood there for a beat longer before Joan said,

“It’s okay if you don’t want to come to meetings. I get it. You’re totally wiggin’ but I get it. But, I mean, we could still talk.”

Sherlock blinked at her. Joan flushed and, bless her, kept going. “I just mean, I’d still like to maybe be friends. Um if that's something you'd also maybe want?”

“Why?” Sherlock blurted before she could stop herself and Joan smiled.

“I mean, even though you’ve got some bent views, you’re pretty far out with all your deduction stuff. And I don’t know, you’re actually kinda rad, in your own crazy way.”

“In English, please?”

“You’re cool, Sherlock Holmes,” Joan laughed. “Be my friend?”

Sherlock shifted back on the balls of her feet. Even though she was fully dressed and Joan was the one in a towel, she felt stripped bare and left exposed. “I don’t really have experience in that department, I confess. I don’t have friends.”

But Joan looked undaunted. “Think you can manage the one?” she challenged.

Sherlock felt her mouth quirk up into a smirk. “I can try.”

“Bitchin,” Joan beamed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go put some clothes on.”

 

Sherlock was still up and stretched out on the couch when Mycroft came home on Joan’s orders- _I’m not an idiot Joan, I know I’m at risk for a concussion, I’ll keep myself awake-_ and her big brother had barely closed the door before he caught sight of the massive bruise blooming from her temple.

“Oh for goodness sakes Sherlock, what did you do?” he chided, voice placid and even, but Sherlock spotted the terror that flitted across his eyes.

“Opened my mouth,” she tried at a joke, surprising herself at her own good mood. “I had a bit of a misunderstanding with a classmate of mine but it’s no worry; we’re all made up now.”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft murmured, sitting down on the coffee table to they were eye to eye.

“I’m sorry I took your bed,” Sherlock said quickly, uncomfortable with the way Mycroft was watching her. “You can sleep in mine, provided you wash the sheets after, of course. Don’t want to catch a disease or anything-“

“Sherlock, you’re grinning,” Mycroft cut her off and she was. She hadn’t stopped grinning since Joan had walked out of school with her, given her a quick hug, and headed home. “Are you well?”

She had a head wound, a new gaggle of girls who hated her and a possible concussion. _And a friend,_ she thought with the same sort of wonder associated with Christmas. _You have a friend_.

“Never been better,” she promised and Mycroft only blinked at her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! I'm sorry this chapter took so long. I have some real good excuses but nOT GOOD ENOUGH
> 
> Anyway, here it is. I hope its length makes up for its lateness

It all sort of went without saying but, suddenly, Joan was sitting with her at lunch and teasing her about her food until she consented to eating a few bites. Joan was following her to the library and sitting at the same table as her. Joan was telling her about her absolute shit day over their respective textbooks as the librarians shot them angry glares.

It never seemed necessary to have a conversation. And what would she have said, anyway? _When I said we could be friends, I never expected you to actually, you know, do it_. With Joan came members of the dyke club- god, she needed to stop calling them that- and of them usually Marcie and Kelsie but, often it was just her and Joan. Joan seemed alright doing most of the talking but, when Sherlock got going about some idiot in her class or when she couldn’t stop her hands from fluttering about as she explained a new experiment she was planning out, Joan seemed quite content to just sit back and listen to her talk with a smile on her face.

She was shit at being a friend, she knew. Sherlock never was sure when she was supposed to respond, when it was her turn to buy something from the vending machine that they could share at lunch, but Joan didn’t really seem to care. If Sherlock forgot to _or didn’t think to_ pat her arm sympathetically after Joan recanted the latest headache associated with the forming soccer team, the blonde would just lean in and rest her head on Sherlock’s shoulder with an almighty sigh. Joan, she was coming to realize, expected absolutely nothing from her but her presence.

Neither of them talked about their home life. That was one of the okay things about Bushwick- everyone was just as poor and had just as shitty a home life as you did. It went without saying neither of them had anything exciting going on back in their respective apartments so, no one thought it weird that they rarely brought up their families and no attempts were made to try and visit each other outside of school.

It got around, as everything did in high school, that Sherlock was with the dyke squad, or at least under their wing, and suddenly she was safer in the halls than she had ever been. She mentioned it to Joan once, how no one seemed to pick fights with her anymore, and the girl had just shrugged.

“That’s what friends are for, yeah?” she said, like it wasn’t much of a revelation. “We look out for each other. Guess you’re the brain and I’m the brawn, yeah?”

Sherlock didn’t know how to explain to her that no, this was never how anything she’d even tentatively titled a ‘friendship’ had gone before and no, this wasn’t about brain or brawn and Joan was so much bigger and suffocating and electric than that but passionate words were Joan’s department. So she bought the snack that day at lunch, wax lips they could barely get their mouths around, and that seemed like enough.

 

“Fuck it! Fuck all of them!” Joan whispered in a furious voice as she slammed herself down into the chair opposite Sherlock.

Sherlock, for her part, jolted up from where she was bent over the library’s biology textbook and looked up wildly, black curls smacking her in the face. “Joan-“ she started and then stopped as the kids at the next table hissed at them to be quiet.

Joan was a right mess. Her face was flushed and her blonde hair was stuck up in the kind of spikes it made when Joan had been running her fingers through it in frustration. One of her overall straps was falling off her shoulder and there was a dark smudge of ink on the inside of her palm. Sherlock peeked at her book bag spilled out on the floor, at the office stationary sticking out of it and at the cleanliness of her sneakers.

“That bastard,” she whispered back and Joan stopped raging to blink at her.

“What?” she asked, paused.

“Principal Richards didn’t give you permission for the soccer team,” Sherlock explained, waving her hand in a bored manner. “I thought he had to. Didn’t they pass a law or something?”

Joan gaped at her. “I’m never gonna get tired of you doing that,” she murmured, awed, and Sherlock didn’t even have time to blush before Joan continued, “How? How’d you do it?”

“Forms in your bag, clean sneakers but it’s a Monday, and the ink on your palm is from the pen his secretary uses- it’s a very distinct fountain pen she got as a gift,” she ranted off and Joan just beamed at her.

“Fucking genius, you are,” she smiled back and this time Sherlock did blush, a high red on her cheeks, before Joan remembered herself and slumped in her seat.

“Yeah, he denied us, that sanctimonious asshole,” she gritted out. “Said we didn’t have the money in the budget which, fine, this school is deadass broke but we don’t need anything ‘sides a net and a few balls, and we can bring that from home! I already said I’d coach for free. And we don’t need busses to games like the football team gets. We can train! Or a couple of girls have cars they can borrow. He’s just doing this because he’s a misogynist.”

“Yeah,” Sherlock agreed, “and he’s lying about the money.”

“Not to mention- what?” Joan looked up from her angry muttering at the table and met Sherlock’s eyes.

“Bushwick got an extra $2,000 from the city this year,” Sherlock told her, leaning forward on the desk to bring their faces closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I saw their tax records last time I got sent to the office; Peterson just had her file drawers unlocked, can you believe it?”

“No I cannot believe the secretary didn’t expect the students to go rifling through her drawers in broad daylight,” Joan deadpanned and Sherlock glared at her.

“Anyway,” she coughed and Joan had the gall to smirk at her, “There is extra money in the budget. Or there was at the start of term. And it clearly isn’t going to the teachers- Robins just had to take out a third mortgage- so where did it go?”

Joan’s eyes were lit up. “You are brilliant!” she cried and then bent her head down with a quick “sorry, sorry,” as the library hushed them. “This is amazing,” she tried again in a softer tone. “All we need to do is write up a petition, get record of this from the public state board meetings, confront Richards and he’ll be forced to do the right thing!”

Sherlock leaned back in her chair and took Joan in. She was blazing, like this, her face red with the idea of a new political protest, her whole body tense and poised for anything, fight and march. Sherlock let her mouth curl up into what everyone back at her old school had called the “batten down the hatches” grin.

“Or,” she offered, her voice giving her away with its lilt of excitement, “we figure out where the money actually went and then engage in some good, clean, blackmail.”

 

“Sherlock, this is stupid.”

Bushwick was not the sort of neighborhood you went wandering around in at just past 2 am but, here they were, dressed in black and sneaking around the back of the chain-link fence. Sherlock glanced behind her, where she was dropped in a crouch by the wire, to glare at her partner in crime.

“We’ll be fine,” she hissed, “if you stop talking and don’t get us caught. Now come on, they keep forgetting to fix this part of the fence.”

With a performer’s air, she lifted the corner of the fence and it gave just enough for two, skinny girls to crawl underneath. She held it up for Joan, who shimming across on her stomach, and then followed her.

“Don’t they have cameras?” Joan worried, biting at her thumb but following Sherlock’s instructions to a T. She was the type, Sherlock figured, to backtalk while still following all the rules.

“They only check the cameras if something goes missing,” Sherlock said as she pushed the fence back into place so no-one walking by would ever notice something amiss. “And nothing is, because we’re not taking anything. We’re just looking. Now come on.”

She hadn’t been sure how Joan would have reacted to her plan to break into the school by night and copy over some papers and, in the library and still full of revolutionary passion, Joan had nodded in agreement. But now, ten minutes after they’d each snuck out of their respective apartments and met under the corner streetlamp, just far enough from the cop car that was always parked by the school, the blonde no longer looked so sold on the mission.

“Follow me,” Sherlock motioned, stealing across the basketball court and towards the brown-brick building. At the back-door entrance to the administration building, Sherlock dropped down to a crouch and pulled out her old lock picking kit. Her picks hadn’t seen daylight, or nightlight in this case, in close to two years and she resisted a sentimental moment with her whole body before getting to work.

“Holy shit,” Joan whispered, apparently caught up and behind her, remembering her job as lookout. “Holy shit, those are actual lock picks. How are you so good at this?”

The door swung open with a soft groan as if to punctuate that statement. Sherlock stood with a wicked grin and pocketed her picks. “Practice,” she shrugged, ushering Joan into the dark hallway and shutting the door behind them. “I used to do this all the time at my old school.”

Joan fished a flashlight out of her bag and clicked it on before asking, “Your old school? I didn’t know you switched here. Where did you used to go?”

Sherlock bit back the implication of that, it wasn’t personal Joan hadn’t noticed she had only appeared for sophomore year- Bushwick was a big school, and instead worked on tamping down her inner panic at the can of worms she’d just opened.

“I moved,” she explained, intentionally vague, as the girls crept down the hallway. The school looked different at night, more menacing and looming with its empty, dark halls. She dropped down again outside the office door, Joan shining a light on the lock so she could work, and then they walked inside.

“Where from?” Joan asked, and Sherlock had to remind herself that Joan was just being friendly. These were normal questions to ask someone; the blonde wasn’t digging for anything.

“My brother and I moved to Bushwick after my first year of high school,” she offered, deliberately not answering the question. Joan knew she lived with her brother; his looming presence had come up once in a conversation. Conversely, she knew Joan had a sister named Harriet who was older and had taught Joan all the secrets of the New York Queer community before packing up and heading out to San Francisco. But she’d never explained that she lived with only her brother.

Joan giggled, ridiculously obtuse. “Okay but I asked you where-“

“Later,” Sherlock brushed off with clear relief as she popped open Peterson’s file cabinet. “Let’s get these first.”

“What are we looking for again?” Joan asked, thankfully moving on as she grabbed the pile of papers Sherlock dropped in her arms.

“Anything unusual involving money,” she explained. “Pay checks that don’t have names, bank stubs that seem too large. Anything that might tell us where the money got to.”

Each girl took a comically large stack of files with them and sat of the floor across from each other- Joan leaning back against Peterson’s desk, Sherlock back against the door- and began to read through them by the light Joan’s flashlight between them.

It was coming up on three-thirty when Joan let out a soft noise and Sherlock unburied her head from a pile of expense reports.

“What, what is it?” she asked and Joan glanced up.

“It’s…I’m not sure. It looks like uniform orders for the football team but there’s two copies of it,” Joan puzzled, turning over the sheets in her hands.

Sherlock crawled across the carpet to take the papers from her, skimming them quickly. “Not copies,” she murmured. “It’s two separate orders. Look, it’s not the same handwriting. The second person is clearly trying to copy but their F’s don’t have the same flourish.”

“Amazing,” Joan whispered, looking up at her and Sherlock was grateful for the poor light as she flushed.

“You know that you do that out loud, right?” she asked, still glaring at the reports and Joan giggled.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ll stop.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Sherlock blushed harder and for a moment it was just the two of them, alone in an office in the middle of the night, no longer high on adrenaline but Sherlock’s hands were still shaking. And then Joan coughed, shattering it all.

“What does it mean?” she asked. “The football team doesn’t need two sets of uniforms,” and Sherlock let out a long tut before bouncing up.

“Oh yes, yes Joan, you are luminous,” she praised, smiling wide and genuine. “It means that we are going to get this xerox machine to work as quietly as we can and then, we have a meeting with our dearest principal tomorrow.”

Joan, as it turned out, was a wiz with the machine. “Summer internship at a kitchen-based women’s publishing group,” she explained, and before long they were sneaking out the way they came, fixing the fence behind them.

It was just past four am. Dawn was in a half hour but right now it was still dark and cool, the air holding them. “Are you okay to get home?” Joan asked and Sherlock nodded.

“I’m just around the corner,” she promised. “You?”

“Yeah, I’m also close,” Joan said, “Plus, I got two guns with me to protect myself,” she rolled back her sleeves to flex her, honestly quite impressive, biceps. Sherlock pushed her.

“Go home, you spaz,” she grumbled and Joan let out one of those giggles Sherlock was starting to find herself working for. “Eight am, by the office?”

“Fuck, yeah,” Joan groaned, glancing at her watch. “I am not gonna look pretty.”

 _You will_ , Sherlock thought before she could stop herself, never more grateful there was at least some kind of filter between her mind and her mouth. “No one will notice,” she smirked and it was Joan’s turn to push her.

“Fuck you,” Joan said with no malice and Sherlock gave her a little shove back. Joan pushed her and then both became aware they were just standing there, touching each other in the dark, neither one really able to stop. Joan’s hand, small and rough with calluses, was on her upper arm and Sherlock felt caught in a way that must have shown on her face because Joan gave her a quick squeeze and then backed up.

“Bye then,” she waved and Sherlock turned almost without meaning to, barely remembering to call out a “bye,” over her shoulder as she scampered home.

She’d stuck out the fire escape on the way out but, coming in, she decided to brave the front door. Mycroft was always at his most sound-asleep the hour before his alarm clock went off. She opened the apartment door and crept inside, shutting it softly behind her.

Her brother was sprawled across the pull-out couch he fastidiously refolded every morning before he went to work and then undid each late night after he came home.  Back in what Sherlock adamantly refused to refer to as ‘their old house,’ her brother had not only had his own room, but a small personal study beside it. Even after he’d gone to college and moved out most of his books, the maids still dusted it every Monday. No one was supposed to go in but Sherlock would curl herself up underneath the mahogany desk on particularly bad days, missing her brother with a pain she refused to label.

Now, she stood at the base of the ‘bed’ and watched her brother sleep for a moment, ever shrinking beneath the thin sheet, his red hair a rat’s nest atop his pillow. He had always slept like a starfish, even back when she’d been four and afraid of thunderstorms, crawling into bed with him. He always let her, never questioning why she didn’t bother their parents’ bed, and made enough space for her to cuddle herself into his edges. In the morning she’d find herself crushed beneath an extended arm or once, memorably, a leg. But she never minded, feeling as safe as she ever felt in those sunlit moments, the world calm post-storm.

Something small in her urged her to do that now, crawl onto the tattered, thin mattress and let herself be held for a moment but she didn’t. Mycroft would have questions, first of which being why she was up so early. She instead padded down the hall and climbed into her own bed, not bothering to do more than strip off her shoes. Despite the adrenaline, she felt herself nodding off and wondered, absently, if it would have even worked. If there was anything left that could actually make her feel safe anymore.

 

Joan was waiting patiently for her outside the office when she strode her way into school the next morning, blue eyes bright with a cup of coffee in each hand. She gave one to Sherlock, who took with a mumble of thanks, and Sherlock was surprised to find it was perfect, just the right amount of sugar and milk.

“Morning, sunshine,” Joan chirped and Sherlock, despite the coffee, hated her. “You ready for whatever master plan it is that you won’t tell me about?”

“It would ruin the performance,” Sherlock grumbled into her coffee. “You have the papers?”

Joan nodded. Around them the student body pulsed as kids rushed off to their lockers and then their classes. Sherlock loved these moments, where she stood apart from the endlessly boring stream in all her genius, a shark in an ocean of guppies. Only this time, it wasn’t just her standing full and superior in the midst of the herd.

Joan watched her, waiting for their cue, and Sherlock took a moment just to _live_ this feeling before she finished her coffee in one long swallow, tossed it in a trash can, and nodded at her. “Let’s go,” she ushered and Joan followed her into the office.

Peterson looked up as they entered and looked as if she was about to say something before Sherlock held her hand up and marched right into the principal’s office, Joan hot on her heels. Richards was just settling in for the day and he looked up in the surprise at the sound of the door, glancing between the two girls looming large over his desk.

“Joan Watson,” he smiled and then glanced over at Sherlock. “And Holmes, how is your arm?”

Sherlock felt Joan’s eyes land on her and didn’t know why she felt uncomfortable. She hadn’t told Joan about getting pushed in the staircase- it had been while Joan was still stalking her and, honestly, it hadn’t been all that big of a deal. Not even in her top five injuries. She’d only ended up in the principal’s office for it because a teacher had seen.

“Good, sir,” Sherlock said respectfully and then swallowed. A full year and a bit of keeping her head down and not making trouble, not getting herself noticed, was about to go up in smoke- all over Joan’s stupid, feminist, soccer team. She hadn’t felt more herself since moving to Bushwick.

“What can I do for you pretty young ladies?” Richards asked, the politeness in his tone barely masking his condescension. “I’m sorry about the softball team, Joan, but the budget is what it is.”

“Soccer,” Joan correctly automatically but Sherlock interrupted before they could get sidetracked.

“Yes, the budget, you did say that,” she started and Richards glanced at her, confused, before she continued. “The budget would be rather tight, especially after buying Coach Mathews a new car.”

The office was silent as both pairs of eyes came to rest on her. “Excuse me?” Richards coughed out but she’d seen enough in his eyes to know her initial guess was right. Good, she didn’t need Joan to know she’d barged in only half-confident she’d figured it out.

“I had been wondering for weeks how a man who still wears the sneakers he had in high school managed to afford at least the down-payment of such a nice, new car, and then Joan dropped the answer right in my lap,” she began and yes _fuck yes_ this is where she belonged, this is what made her want to _be alive_. This performance, these moments where every eye was on her and she was entirely visible and right and so _fucking_ vivid.

“Football team has been doing real well these past few seasons,” she kept going, her tone light and casual even as her eyes blazed. “Well enough that Mathews has been getting offers, much better offers, from other schools. But what would Bushwick do without its award-winning team?” she asked, turning suddenly mocking and cruel. “It’s our school’s very spirit. It’s what sets us apart- the best team in Brooklyn. Who could blame you for wanting to keep its coach here? You had to. It was what was best for the school.”

“You,” Richards hissed, face a deep red and eyes hot, “are making some seriously disturbed accusations.”

“I agree,” Sherlock spit back. “What’s most disturbing is how true they are. Joan, the papers?”

Joan blinked, as though coming out of a daze, and pulled the wrinkled copies out of her back pocket, smoothing them out on Richards’ desk. As soon as he saw them, Sherlock knew she was right.

“Two copies of the uniform order,” she said, coming over closer to the desk to better loom over the still sitting Richards. “Easily the most expensive part of the team’s budget. A great way to hide a few hundred dollars laundered out; shirts for returning team members who haven’t grown, padding for members that don’t exist. But hiding $2000? That’s too much for one order.

“Which is why those aren’t copies,” she said, practically glowing with her own brilliance as she snatched up the forgery. “Meant to look like them, yes, in case any authorities came snooping around, but not both filled out by the hardworking Ms. Peterson. One of them, this one specifically, is an order never placed, an order totaling well over $1000, that went directly into the pocket of Bushwick High’s very favorite coach.”

Richards stared at her, seeing her as if for the first time, before swallowing hard. “You cannot prove any of this,” he said hoarsely and Sherlock nodded.

“No, I can’t,” she agreed. “But, I can run my mouth and raise enough eyebrows that somebody comes down here to investigate and, well, they might find some things I couldn’t. And what a risk that would be. Wouldn’t it just be easier to give us what we want?”

“Which is?” Richards bit out, desperately trying to stay dominant in the conversation and failing miserably.

“Joan’s soccer proposal,” Sherlock offered, her voice placid. “The team gets Bushwick’s name, use of the field at least three times a week for practice, and a hundred dollars or so for new balls and nets. Joan is coach.”

Richards held her eye, the two of them locked in standstill. Sherlock knew who would win; while his eyes were nervous and caught, hers held nothing but triumph. Finally, he broke contact and reached into his desk to pull out a calendar.

“They can have Tuesday and Thursday after football team is done with it, and Friday right after school. I’ll have a check ready by the end of the day,” he growled out, shutting the book with force.

“Perfect,” Sherlock said, tilting her head. “Pleasure doing business.”

“The papers,” Richards demanded, holding out his hand and Sherlock gestured to the one still left on his desk, their copy of the original.

“You can keep that one,” she smiled, waving her copy of the forged order. “We’ll hold onto this one for security. Have a good day!” she called back cheerfully as she swept out of the office and past Peterson with a little wave.

Joan followed behind her, utterly mute with wide eyes. Once they got out to the now-empty hall, Sherlock turned to check she was alright before finding herself caught in Joan’s over-enthusiastic arms.

“Oh my _fucking_ god!” Joan gasped in her ear, letting her go only to marvel at her. “You were in _credible_ in there. I can’t believe it, I can’t believe you! Cool as a cucumber. You didn’t even flinch! Holy hell you are so brilliant!”

Joan was still chattering, ranting about how great she was, but Sherlock wasn’t listening. It was her eyes that finally clued her in. She might have been the most observant person in the whole of Bushwick, but it took her until that very moment to catch what was blatant in Joan’s eyes.

“- and you- Sherlock?” Joan finally paused, gazing up at her in concern but it was still there.

_Joan Watson likes you_

Suddenly all of the triumph, the thrill of victory that had floated her out of Richards’ office dissipated and she was just a too-skinny girl shifting back awkwardly in third-hand jeans. The hallway felt too tight, the space too small and Sherlock could not get air in her lungs.

“You-“ she started but didn’t need to finish because she watched those blue eyes change as Joan got it, became aware of what was blazing out of every pore of her being- what she should have realized she couldn’t have hoped to hide from Sherlock for very long at all.

“Oh, no, Sherlock I didn’t mean-“ she started but Sherlock was already bolting down the empty halls, leaving behind Joan who stood there, watching her run away from the affection pouring out of her in waves.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, I have been terrible. Expect more updates now that I'm on break again. I swear though, this story is getting finished. I have it all planned out in my head and everything!

Sherlock came to lunch against her better instincts, knowing it was the only way to stop yet another two weeks of Joan stalking her. Better they talk about it, as Joan would most definitely want, so they could both move on and go back to not knowing the other one existed.

Joan was waiting for her, just as she’d suspected, by their usual table. She looked surprised when Sherlock sat down, then hopeful, and finally drawn as she took in Sherlock’s overall appearance.

“Hey-“ she started gently but Sherlock shook her head. They sat in silence for a moment before she felt ready to speak.

“You like me,” she said, just to hear it confirmed, and Joan didn’t deny it, only nodded. She looked particularly good that morning, green tank-top showing off her arms and decorated with a small feminist button on the hem, with thick metal bracelets on her right arm.

“That’s why Marcie and Kelsie don’t give you a hard time about ditching them for me,” she continued, hating how much all of this hurt her but needing to be told she was right. “They think you’re trying to chat me up, get me to sleep with you.”

“Well that’s not-“ Joan tried to protest but Sherlock kept going.

“That’s why you stalked me after the meeting. That’s why you’ve been hanging out with me this whole time,” she finished, her voice catching on the end of it and suddenly her hands were caught up in Joan’s palms.

“What?” Joan cried, loud enough to attract the attention of the nearby tables and loud enough to startle Sherlock out of her gloomy stare at the table graffiti. “No, you idiot. No!”

“No?” Sherlock repeated, _like an idiot_ , caught off-guard.

“No,” Joan stated, hard. “I mean, yes to the liking you part. I do, a lot. I’m sorry about the office, you were just- holy fuck were you unbelievably sexy in there. But no, that is not why I hang out with you, you utter idiot.”

Sherlock blinked at her and that seemed to give Joan the bravery to keep going. “I hang out with you because I like hanging out with you and I want to be your friend. Just your friend. Really, whatever you want. But I am so, so good with just friendship.”

“I thought-“ Sherlock swallowed. “Maybe you only wanted-“

Joan laughed. “I may be a little one-track minded but if I only wanted sex, I would not have been down to commit hard-core robbery with you in the middle of the night. I’m a big girl, I can deal with a little rejection, but I cannot deal with not having you in my life. You are my friend, Sherlock. Even if that’s all you want to be.”

She looked so earnest, holding on tight to Sherlock’s hands and leaning well across the table to meet her eyes that all Sherlock could mumble was, “Technically, it wasn’t robbery.”

Now it was Joan’s turn to look disoriented. “What?”

“Robbery. It wasn’t, well, that. We didn’t take anything. It was breaking and entering and even then, more just entering. We didn’t really break anything,” she protested and Joan burst into peals of laughter, Sherlock joining in after once stuck moment.

When they had caught their breath, and when the lunchroom had stopped glaring at them, Sherlock tried again.

“So you still would like to be friends even though I am not…well…” she stammered and Joan took pity on her.

“It’s okay, Sherlock. People are straight sometimes,” she said gently and Sherlock realized they were still holding hands. Neither moved to let go. “As long as it doesn’t bother you, I’ll work really hard to get over my feelings. But you’re not responsible for them. What’s most important is our friendship.”

“I mean, it’s not that I don’t find you attractive,” she babbled and honestly why wasn’t someone _shutting her up_ , “I mean that you are, objectively attractive it’s just- some might say- I guess I wouldn’t say that I find-“

“Sherlock?” Joan asked, blessedly pausing her.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up,” and, just like that, it felt like everything was going to be okay.

 

Principal Richards kept up his side of the bargain- “Blackmail arrangement, Sherlock. That’s what it’s called,” Joan laughed at her- and the girls of Bushwick Public High School were granted their very own soccer team. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, instead of sulking with Sherlock on various street corners, Joan stayed late to push the girls through their paces. And Sherlock, naturally, stayed as well, doing her homework in the stands and watching with one eye as the girls ran drills, smirking to herself whenever Joan’s yelling got into a tailspin of curses.

“You should just join the team,” Joan offered one Thursday after practice. They were alone in the locker room, Joan always stayed later than the rest of the team to clean up. Joan was in the shower with Sherlock perched on one of the wooden benches outside, talking through the curtain to ‘keep Joan company.’

“Hm?” Sherlock hummed, lost for a second in a section of her book.

Joan peeked her head around the curtain to look at her, her hair plastered to her face, cheeks red from the hot water. “You stay late anyway. Why not just practice with us?”

Sherlock blinked at her, her own skin suddenly flushed as well. “I don’t stay late to watch you all kick a ball around for two hours. I’m just waiting for you.”

Joan’s face did a funny thing, as though she was split between laughing and blushing. “That’s sweet, honestly, but you don’t have to wait. I could just come pick you up when we’re done and we could hang out then.”

“What else would I do?” Sherlock asked, honestly lost. And really, what else would she do? Go home to the apartment and make makeshift experiments with the leftover Chinese?

“You could play with us,” Joan offered but Sherlock shook her head.

“You’re better off without me,” she said, picking on herself good-naturedly. “You have enough to worry about without trying to get me to be coordinated. As it is, you guys are almost good.”

“You’re absurd,” Joan giggled, stepping out of the shower and walking over to get her towel. Sherlock pointedly stared at the matted floor. “We’d be lucky to have you. Now just give me a second to get dressed and then we can go to the park and do that thing with the dandelions you’ve been pestering me to do with you.”

The thing was that Joan was, remarkably, very good at soccer. All of them were flying by the metaphorical seat of their pants, none of them having any sort of formal coaching or training, least of all Joan, but they put in twice the effort for it. Joan, for her part was reading soccer books in the library across the table from Sherlock and her bio homework and practicing drills in the public park after it closed for the day and spouting off soccer facts at Sherlock like they were _interesting_ or something.

“Did you know,” Joan started as they were waiting in line to get their food, “that the British claim they invented soccer but _actually_ it was invented by the Chinese in-“

“Oh please shut up,” Sherlock groaned as Joan ladled corn onto her lunch tray. “I don’t sit about trying to tell you when DNA was discovered-“

“Because I’m in a higher bio class than you are,” Joan teased, making a face and then putting the same food she had taken for herself on Sherlock’s tray without asking. “You may be better than me at a lot of thing, but you’re not better than me at bio.”

“Not yet,” Sherlock grumbled and Joan laughed, leading to their table. “Speaking of, I pickpocketed Mr. Mark earlier today when he was helping the group at the table next to mine-

“Sherlock-“

“- and I have this idea I want to try and test out with Nitro-chlorine. You in?”

“You know I am,” Joan smiled and Sherlock ignored the thud her heart made. “But it’ll have to wait. Feminist club is having a meeting tonight to plan the action for next Monday.”

That was the one thing they didn’t talk about, the largest block between them. So far it had only come up twice- the feminist club meet every other week- but Sherlock had steadfast refused to come to either, instead holing herself up in the library until Joan came to collect her and they went about their day. Joan never pushed her, never did more than just bring it up casually, and yet just the mention of it set Sherlock on edge, her lungs tight and her skin itchy.

Joan bit her lip and then said, in a softer voice, “Do you want to come? It’s gonna be a long meeting this week and I don’t want to keep you waiting upstairs.”

Sherlock forced herself to consider it. It was just a meeting, after all. She sat through hundreds of classes where she disagreed with everything the teacher said without a word of protest. She sat through rain and fog and would probably, as November began to grow colder, sit through snow to watch Joan and the team play a ridiculous sport she had no interest in. She could do this. She could attend one goddamn meeting.

“Sure,” she said, aiming for casual and unaffected and just missing the mark. “Don’t see why not. As long as we get a shot at the chem lab afterwards.”

Joan beamed at her, clearly surprised and suddenly it felt like the right decision. “Deal.”

So that afternoon found her waiting outside Joan’s locker as the blonde put her books away and closed it with a slam. “If at any point,” she was saying to Sherlock as she slung on her bag and fixed her hair, “you feel uncomfortable in any way, take space for yourself, okay? Go to the library and I’ll come check on you or I won’t, if that’s not what you want. You don’t have to feel trapped or forced-“

“Joan,” Sherlock cut her off and Joan shut her mouth. “I’m a big girl, I promise. Stop ‘wigging out.’”

Joan smiled at her attempted use of slang and slung an arm around her shoulders. “I already feed you and keep you from freezing yourself to death,” she joked as the two made their way down the hall. “Permit me a little anxious worrying as well, if you will.”

Room 408 was already busy by the time they got there, with Marcie and Kelsie by the front desk, organizing papers. Joan dropped her off at the back of the room with a quick squeeze and then bounded up to the front of the class. By the time she got there, she was a different Joan. No, that wasn’t quite right, Sherlock mused as she set herself down in a chair by the window. It was the same Joan just…unleashed. Unbridled. She got that way playing soccer too sometimes, a bit more manic behind the eyes, freer with her mouth. A force to be reckoned with.

“You guys don’t have to wait for me,” she laughed and everyone laughed too because yes, of course they did. “Okay, few words of review before we get started. There’s a massive action in Times Square on Monday against the Vietnam War. NYRF, that’s the New York Radical Feminists- thanks for the look Marcie- is gonna be there and we’re planning on joining them later in the day after class. Today’s meeting is mostly to make signs and learn some protest songs, but also to brainstorm on how we can bring parts of the protest back here. Any questions?”

“What does feminism have to do with the war?”

Everyone stared back and her and suddenly Sherlock realized that she had spoken. She’d forgotten for a second, watching Joan talk, that it wasn’t just the two of them alone at a lunch table. She felt herself turning beet red but Joan only smiled at her with what could only be described as tenderness.

“Excellent question, Sherlock. Should not have just assumed we were all on the same page about that,” she said. “It’s a long answer but NYRF’s reason for going is that they as citizens are against the war. Too often when women protest war, we are forced to protest as grieving mothers, as grieving wives, as women who stand to lose the men in our lives. But who are we then? We are women and we are against the war- because of its cruelty, its senselessness, for millions of reasons. But we’re not mothers, or even wives. We are citizens of a country, just like any male citizen and we are against this war as much as they are. We don’t need to protest war while propping up traditional womanhood- we can protest both at the same time.”

Joan had said all that in an even tone, not a raised word or hidden battle cry within it. Still, when she finished, the room burst into applause and snaps and cries of “totally boss.” Sherlock felt like applauding herself, honestly, and nodded quickly to show she understood. Joan was a red mess but smiling and waited for the room to calm down.

“Great, great. Glad we all agree,” she muttered. “Okay, let’s get started. Brainstorming first, and then Ellie is on deck to teach us some rad protest songs.”

The meeting seemed to rush past. It was decided that they’d put up the signs from the protest in the hallways afterwards and that if anyone tried to take them down, ‘fucking sock them in the jaw’ Kelsie suggested, they’d hold in a sit-in at lunch. Flyers were passed around with the words to protest songs meticulously copied over by hand – “save them for Monday!” Joan urged- and then everyone split into groups to draw up their own signs. Sherlock was leaning over her group’s sign to gently correct the spelling of Vietnam, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Joan wad waiting for her with a massive hug. “Thanks for your question,” she said as she squeezed the life out of Sherlock. “It was so good. And your group’s poster looks awesome!”

Sherlock, being Sherlock, caught everything she wasn’t saying. _Thank you for staying. Thank you for taking this seriously. Thank you for supporting me._ “It was my pleasure,” she said in answer to all of them and Joan leaned in to plant a dry kiss on her cheek.

“I’m gonna go check on the other groups,” she said and Sherlock turned back to her group with a nod, fighting with everything in herself to keep from touching the spot on her cheek.

The meeting wrapped up close to six, with Joan wiping down the blackboard and yelling “Remember, Monday after school, meet on the front steps and we’ll take the train together,” and then Sherlock took over so Joan could hold a short pow-wow with Kelsie and Marcie.

“- I agree, yes. We need to prove we’re not all show and no go,” Marcie was saying and Joan was nodding.

“I’m just nervous about holding a protest here, right now with the soccer team so new,” she cautioned. “Let’s win something first, then we’ll have firmer ground-“

“Win what?” Kelsie pushed. “Who can we play against? The closest women’s soccer team is over in Queens- unless you wanna try and play with the rich kids in Midwood.”

“Gross, no. We are never playing private school,” Joan gagged and Sherlock felt her skin burn. “Alright you dicks, peel out. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Have fun,” Marcie said and Sherlock didn’t even need to turn around to know they were making suggestive faces at Joan.

“Kiss off, assholes,” Joan giggled and they did, waving and calling out, “Bye Sherlock, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye,” Sherlock whispered more to herself and then suddenly Joan had her hands on her waist and started tickling her. Sherlock shrieked, she couldn’t help it, and turned around to better defend herself. Joan took that as an invitation to tickle at her stomach and Sherlock doubled over, laughing madly despite herself and lashing out with her hands.

“Get off me, you-you you libber!” Sherlock yelped and Joan laughed at her.

“Looks who’s figuring out slang all by herself,” she teased and finally, blessedly, stopped. “Not like it’s much of an insult. And anyway, you’re a libber now too.”

Sherlock took a minute to catch her breath, leaning back against the blackboard. “Hardly. I was only humoring you.”

“Your sign came out the nicest of anyone’s,” Joan pointed out, nodding her head to where it lay on the table.

“Well there’s no point in faking inadequacy, is there?” she huffed but Joan only gave her a knowing look.

“Come on,” she said, moving away to gather up the signs and Sherlock suddenly felt cold with their bodies no longer pressed together. “Ms. Leibowitz said we could keep the signs in her closet till Monday. And then, we got an experiment to run before they close up the school at six.”

“Why rush?” Sherlock said, picking up a pile of signs. “It’s not as if it’s our first time breaking out of the school.”

“That may be but Harry sent me a letter yesterday with a whole two dollars in it and I have grand plans to buy us both milkshakes,” Joan said as Sherlock followed her dutifully out of the class, pausing to shut the light off behind them. “And that requires us to get to the corner store before they close for the night.”

“You make a compelling case,” she said, pretending to mull it over and Joan elbowed her.

“Get out,” she giggled and, both laughing, they made their way up to the Chemistry labs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My gratuitous use slang isn't exhausting- yours is!


	5. Chapter 5

“What the fucking hell was that, Stacey?” a strong voice rang out across the grassy field as sixteen girls stood panting, their palms on their knees. “Better yet, the fucking hell was that, all of you? I expect better from you shit-fuckers than a fifth-grade kickball game. Let’s fucking try that the fuck again, shall we?”

From her seat in the bleachers, hunched over her math homework, Sherlock hid a smirk in her coat collar. Joan was always at her most entertaining when she got swear-y. A whistle blew and the field was alive again with girls’ shouts and calls in the stiff wind. Sherlock scribbled out an answer, forcing herself to jot down ‘her work’ and cursed school as an institution. Back in her private school, she hadn’t touched homework with a ten-foot pole but, then things changed. Now the less her teachers noticed her existence, the better for her and Mycroft.

She found herself distracted for a moment by the newspaper sticking out of her bag. She’d turned it to the obituary section during third period and read it all in fourth but something about it was still bothering her. Joan’s whistle sounded again and she shook herself and went back to her problem set as Joan’s string of curses grew longer and more creative.

Was it Roger Jefferson’s death? No, heart attack- simple enough. Georgia Palmer? No, obituary said it was illness but it was clearly domestic abuse- still, boring. Obvious. Was it Nina Gonzales? Suicide, leapt off a roof in the Bronx but there was zoning in that area- nothing built above four floors. Four floors are enough to kill, yes, but just barely- was that bothering her-

“Alight, that’s enough,” Joan shouted and Sherlock blinked herself back to the present. “It’s Friday and that play only made me want to tear about half my hair out so you can go ten minutes early. Practice over the weekend, you goddamn spazzes.”

“Don’t forget to come to the rally Monday,” a higher-pitched voice, Mary Morstan’s most likely, rang out and a couple of ‘rads’ followed it. Sherlock waited until the hum of voices had faded into the locker room before stuffing her things in her bag and climbing down the bleachers to join Joan on the field, currently dismantling a goal.

“Hey, stranger,” Joan smiled at her, pushing her ponytail back over her shoulder and Sherlock spared her a tiny wave before sitting back down on the team’s bench. “I just need to finish with this one and then I’m off to the shower. Don’t feel obligated to help.”

“I don’t,” she shot back and this was rude, she was being awful, but Joan just laughed and went back to the white plastic pipes.

“So what are we doing this weekend?” Joan called over. “Museum? Comic shop? Beach?”

“Hilarious,” Sherlock drawled.

“We would be great additions to the Polar Bear Club,” Joan insisted in a continuation of an old argument neither of them took seriously. “And besides, cold water is great for immunity.”

“And hypothermia,” Sherlock said, only half paying attention. Nina, oh Nina. “Tell me, what’s strange about a woman jumping to her death from four stories?”

“Jesus, Sherlock, we’ve talked about topic transitions,” Joan swore. “Ease into new topics, make a bridge; it’s like writing an essay.”

“Excuse me. I meant, speaking of death by the Atlantic Ocean, what about death via a technically survivable jump?”

“Hm, read me the whole obituary,” Joan asked, already confident in what Sherlock was wrestling with without having to ask. Obligingly, because the question nearly bordered on a deduction, Sherlock pulled the newspaper out of her bag and read,

“Nina Gonzales, age 34, left the world this week without an angel. Nina worked as a nurse in Mount Sinai Hospital and leaves behind her husband and three sons. She died from a fatal fall from the roof of her apartment building’, and then it has the address to send flowers to-  so obviously the scene of the crime as well.” She folded back up and looked up to find Joan staring at her with her puzzling-it-out face on. “I know it says fall but it’s clearly a jump, the language is stilted and hurt, whoever wrote it wasn’t happy with Nina when they did so not accident, but suicide.”

“Those poor kids,” she murmured. “I never understood jumpers. Always seemed like the worst way to go. And she’s a nurse too, seems she’d know how much it would hurt-

“Or how unsuccessful it could be,” Sherlock finished, a light spreading across her face. “Of course, that’s what was bothering me. Not that she died from the jump but that she would even jump at all. She of all people would know there was only a fifty-fifty chance a fall that low would kill her- and all while she had access to much more painless ways to go-“

“She could have stolen pills,” Joan nodded, catching on. “But maybe she didn’t want to burden her family-

“Because forcing them to peel you off the sidewalk is so much kinder to them,” she countered and Joan winced. “No, too many variables.”

“So was she murdered?” Joan asked, her voice nothing but even.

“Yes. Maybe. Quite possibly,’ Sherlock finally decided. “Worth investigating at the very least.”

Joan sighed. “Alright. Let me shower first.”

“Joan?”

“Of course we’ll go poke around, you’ll be a pain all weekend if we don’t,” the blonde offered and Sherlock felt her heart swell in a way that probably wasn’t safe. “And besides, it’s something to do.”

“Joan I- thank you,” Sherlock said later, as she sat on her customary locker room bench and the water rushed behind the yellow, plastic curtain. Joan poked her head out and grinned through the stream.

“Don’t go thanking me or I’ll worry you’ve hurt something,” she joked and Sherlock laughed and laughed.

 

Nina Gonzales was murdered, by her brother-in-law of all people, and by Sunday night all the details were being written out on a piece of drugstore paper by a triumphant Sherlock. Across the Bushwhick Public Library’s plastic table, a muddy and disheveled Joan was still smiling at her like she couldn’t quite believe it. Frankly, Sherlock was half writing to keep herself from staring back.

“I cannot fucking believe you made me crawl through a sewer,” Joan murmured, and maybe it was the water in Sherlock’s ears but she sounded almost fond.

“We had to, the knife was down there,” Sherlock found herself giggling. Said knife sat in a ziplock bag next to them, still covered in a bit of sewer grime.

“You’re a complete ape,” Joan giggled back and all of a sudden they were cackling, covered in mud and wet and laughing around a bagged knife.

Neither of them were surprised when the librarian on duty asked them to leave two minutes later.

“I still need to finish this,” Sherlock said once they’d found themselves on the already-dark street outside, gesturing with the half-finished letter. “And then run it down to the station. Or maybe it’s better to mail it- don’t really foresee going to the Bushwhick police holding a knife, even if it is in a bag-“

“You want to come to mine?” Joan offered and Sherlock promptly shut up. “My mom’s out of town all week so I’ve got the whole place to myself.”

“I-“ Sherlock started to refuse and then could not think of a single reason she should do so. “Alright.”

Joan seemed surprised for a second and Sherlock panicked that maybe it had only been one of those offers-to-be-polite and she’d been meant to refuse when Joan smiled again, brighter this time, and gestured with her shoulder. “C’mon, it’s just a few blocks this way.”

Joan lived in one of the renovated brown-bricks buildings that made Bushwhick so famous but altered so the landlord could fit two or three families in what was meant to be one apartment. The Watsons apartment was a one bedroom with a wider living room, a kitchen in the corner, and a shared bathroom at the end of the hall. A screen was erected in the corner of the living room and Sherlock could see a bed and a bureau behind it. Joan toed off her shoes by the worn welcome mat and hung up her coat, gesturing around with her free hand.

“Welcome,” she said, smiling. “Sorry it’s a bit messy.”

“It’s lovely,” Sherlock said, and meant it. Whereas her and Mycroft’s apartment was a bit bigger, they at least had their own bathroom, Joan’s home was obviously ‘nicer.’ It was full with soft, worn couches and chairs, with wooden drawers pushed against the wall and throw blankets littering every surface. It looked like a home people lived in.

“Me and Harry’s room,” Joan said, pushing in the only door inside the apartment. “Well, just mine now but Harry’s whenever she comes back.”

Joan’s room was a box but, again, it felt warmer than Sherlock’s slightly larger box at home. Bunkbeds took up most of the space, with the bottom one now serving as a bit of shelf space, and the floor was littered with magazines, papers, Joan’s combat boots and jean jackets and, somehow, more throw blankets. A small window looked out onto the alleyway between them and the building next door.

“Do you want to shower?” Joan asked, focusing Sherlock and the younger girl nodded.

“That would be wonderful, thanks,” she said, trying out a smile. It sat weird and Joan, appropriately laughed at it. “You can shower first though, I’ll finish up the letter.”

“Alright, but be warned- the hot water runs out quick,” she teased. “Feel free to sit anywhere. Make yourself comfortable,” she urged, grabbing a grey towel off her bedroom floor and headed out of the apartment and down the hall. The door closed behind her and suddenly Sherlock was alone in Joan’s apartment.

The need to snoop was undeniable but Sherlock restricted herself, quite herculean-ly she felt, to rummaging through the papers on the living room table and under Joan’s bed. All she discovered were several letters to Laurie Watson from a few different men, unpaid bills, and a hairbrush handle under Joan’s mattress that she put back immediately. It only confirmed what she already knew from the moment she’d walked in- the Watsons were quite comfortably on the poverty line, Laurie Watson’s drug problem was only the tip of her poor life choices and no man had ever lived long-term in the apartment. Which meant Joan’s mysterious father must have-

“Shower’s all yours,” Joan said and Sherlock nearly jumped, absurdly grateful that she’d been only sitting on Harry’s old bed, a Ms. magazine in hand. “Oh, that’s a great issue. Guessing you didn’t finish the letter?”

“Nearly,” Sherlock lied. “You didn’t say where your mother way this week.”

“Are sweatpants okay to wear after your shower?” Joan asked, rustling through her drawers and very clearly ignoring Sherlock’s question. For once in her life, she took a hint. She had a nearly-certain guess anyway.

“Just fine,” Sherlock said and Joan put a pile a clean clothes in her hands, along with a blue towel that had seen better days, shampoo and a bar of soap.

“Knob turns left for hot, right for cold,” Joan explained. “Make sure you lock the top lock, our weird neighbor Tom has a spare key somehow. And take my sandals.”

“Yes right, got it,” she said and Joan smiled at her, an unsaid thanks in her eyes. “See you in a bit?”

“Don’t drown,” Joan shot back and it really was a pretty weak retort but Sherlock made her way down the hall with a smile playing in the corner of her mouth. After all, this was her first time over a friend.

Joan had used up most of the hot water but it wasn’t unbearably cold and she dressed herself rather quickly afterwards. Joan was a few inches shorter than her but several sizes larger than her breast-wise so the shirt worked out just fine. The sweatpants…well, with the drawstrings pulled almost to their ends, they stayed up and covered the important bits at least.

Warm and dry, Sherlock padded her way back to the apartment and found Joan at the small stove, something bubbling in front of her.

“I’m sure you’re starving,” she said, not looking up as Sherlock closed the door behind herself. “I’m hungry enough for both of us at least. Soup okay?”

“Perfect,” Sherlock said and Joan looked back to smile softly at her. Sherlock settled herself at the small wooden table and finished the letter as Joan threw various things in a pot and hummed to herself. She set a cup of tea in front of Sherlock at some point and Sherlock hummed back and soon enough the letter was sealed and addressed and Joan was spooning out two bowls and bringing them over to the table.

“Some case, yeah?” she offered and Sherlock took a small sip of her soup before going off.

“It was genius, really, to use the impact of the ground to disguise the actual cut marks,” she agreed. “But if he’d really been clever, he would have beaten her to death rather than stab her. The bruising would have blended almost seamlessly.”

“If only all murderers could be as clever as you,” Joan said, smiling indulgently before slurping her soup. Sherlock cringed internally at the sound- for all that she’d left that house, she and Mycroft had never put aside the manners that had been engrained in them since childhood.

“It would certainly make for a more interesting weekend,” Sherlock grumbled and Joan only slurped her soup in reply.

“Go on then, show off for me. How did you figure out it was the brother-in-law and not the husband?” she prompted and by the time Sherlock got to her soup, it had grown cold.

 

“You’re welcome to sleep over,” Joan said some time later. They’d migrated to the overstuffed couch, both of them resting against opposite armrests with their legs tangled between them, and Sherlock realized with a start it was almost midnight.

“No I- my brother will worry,” she said, realizing just how true that was. “But, a different time?”

Joan beamed at her through half-lidded eyes. It had been a weekend of little sleep and even Sherlock was crashing. “Most definitely.”

Joan stood up with her while she headed to get her shoes but she waved her off when Sherlock started to sweep up her muddy clothes. “Wear mine home,” she insisted, fishing out a plastic bag for Sherlock to carry her muddy jeans in. “You can bring them back to me tomorrow.”

“At the protest?” Sherlock asked and Joan only reached out to ruffle her hair. It was a demeaning gesture and Sherlock should have been annoyed but she only felt herself shiver a bit in the warmth of the touch. If Joan noticed, she didn’t say a word.

“Go get some sleep, Einstein,” she smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you,” Sherlock said and then they hugged for half a minute- a quick press of Joan’s chest against hers, a whiff of Joan’s shampoo _I smell like that too now_ and then she was outside making the four block trek to her own apartment.

She’d just finished washing her dirty clothes in the sink and was in the midst of hanging them in the shower to dry when she heard the apartment door creak open. Mycroft padded through the living room and then directly to the bathroom, not even stopping to peak in her room.

“Those aren’t your pajamas,” he said but Sherlock was too tried to do more than roll her eyes at him.

“Well spotted; one would say you ought to be a detective,” she drawled, washing her hands in the sink before setting to braid her hair. Mycroft extended a hand and wordlessly, Sherlock leaned her head back. After all, he’s always been better at this than her.

“Did you go chasing that silly murder in the Bronx?” he murmured, combing through her hair and Sherlock raised her eyebrows at him in the mirror. “The mud on the bottom of your jeans that you didn’t quite scrub out, very distinct. I saw it in the paper on Friday too, not surprised you went running after it.”

Her jeans were almost hidden by the shower curtain but Sherlock wasn’t surprised by her brother at all. “Figured it out too.”

“Brother-in-law, obviously,” he said and this time Sherlock did turn. “Careful- you’ll ruin the braid.”

“Now how on earth could you have known that?” she demanded and Mycroft’s mouth quirked into a small smile,

“I’m smarter than you,” he teased and Sherlock growled but allowed herself to be turned back around so he could finish off the braid. “But you still haven’t told me whose clothes these are.”

“Why don’t you just deduce it?” she muttered.

“I’m a genius, Sherlock, not a mind-reader. I know the obvious bits, friend from school, height, weight, hair color, class year. But I hadn’t realized you’d, well-“

“Made friends?”

“It’s not an insult, sister-mine.”

“I wasn’t insulted.”

“Of course not,” Mycroft said simply. He tucked in the last strands and tied the whole thing off. He really was very good at women’s hair.

“Her name is Joan,” Sherlock volunteered softly and Mycroft didn’t move, both of them staring forward into the mirror and still not making eye contact. “She’s a year above me. We solve crimes together when we’re bored.”

Mycroft said nothing for a long moment before squeezing her shoulder for the briefest moment and pulling back. “Invite her over sometime,” he said and Sherlock let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Maybe,” she said back, her voice oddly gone, and Mycroft nodded.

“Goodnight Sherlock.”

“Night,” she said as he disappeared back down the hall and into the living room to unfold his own bed. She stared at herself a long minute, eyes still a little unfocused, gash across her cheek from a sewer pipe and her hair pulled back in a perfect braid, before turning on the water to brush her teeth.

 

* * *

 

Monday seemed to rush by before Sherlock could catch it and suddenly she was outside in the cold, sitting on the school steps as a group of girls gathered around her. Joan sat next to her, their shoulders pressed together, before she reached out, squeezed Sherlock’s hand, and stood up.

“Let’s go guys,” she yelled out and the whole pack moved forwards to the train station. They filled up half a car, laughing and singing to each other and by the time they got to Manhattan, Sherlock felt her body vibrating with nervous energy. Joan had slung an arm around her shoulders before she even noticed herself shaking. “It’s gonna be just fine,” the blonde promised. “It shouldn’t get violent or anything.”

“I’m not scared,” Sherlock promised and Joan gave her a quick squeeze.

“Course not. Let’s go guys!” she yelled and they all poured out up onto the streets where already a crowd was gathered, chanting and singing and waving signs.

“If you get lost, we’re gonna meet back here at eight. Give ‘em hell!” Joan cheered and suddenly Sherlock was alive in a way she only felt herself get during a case. She felt the city shiver around her- New York breathing and angry and ready to get shit done. They’d gathered in the park and it felt like there were so many people here, all these bodies pushed close together with the same things to say. The whole block hummed with energy and anger and she let it fill her bones, let her heart pound in turn with the chanting, and she reached down to interlock her hand with Joan’s.

“Shall we?” she shouting in Joan’s ear, over the noise, and Joan smiled back at her, mouthing “fuck yeah.” And so they dived into the fray. There were people giving out signs, people selling water; there were actual children running around between people’s legs laughing and trying to catch each other.

“Was Washington like this?” Sherlock asked, curious.

“Better,” Joan said and Sherlock could see the bright flush rising in her cheeks too, how alive she looked. “There we were marching so it felt like we were going somewhere. Lot more police response too. This is somewhat quieter, just like a little pre-election reminder.”

Nothing felt ‘little’ about this but Sherlock wasn’t about to argue. Out of the corner of her eye she could see across the way what looked like a counter-protest separated from them by the police. She was surprised, for a moment, how many men were on their side of the park. There were three boys in the Bushwhick feminist club but two were very clearly gay and one was there with his girlfriend. But these men were young and just as angry and not attached to any woman.

“Why are there men here?” she asked before she could stop herself but Joan didn’t laugh at her.

“Well, cause men are against the war too, mostly,” she explained. “But plenty of men are feminists.”

“Why on earth would they be?”  she wondered and really, why would they be? What did men gain by having women equal to them? Women they couldn’t abuse, take advantage of, _women they couldn’t rape_ -

“Same reason white people marched with Dr. King,” Joan shrugged. “Inequality is wrong, whatever side of it you’re on.” And with that she pulled them further into the crowd and Sherlock followed, staring unabashedly at the two men waiving a “we won’t fight another rich man’s war,” with flowers in their hair.

An hour in found them in the middle of the crowd, singing along to a protest song Joan had taught them back at school, when suddenly Joan’s grip on her hand grew tighter.

“Holy shit, that’s Shulamith Firestone,” Joan gasped in her ear and Sherlock turned to look behind her at a woman with long brown hair and round-plastic glasses. She had her arm around someone and they were singing loudly along, stopping briefly only to say something to each other.

“Who is she?” Sherlock asked.

“Only like one of the founders of NYRF,” Joan said and now she was the one who was vibrating. “And she wrote _The Dialect of Sex_ and she was a part of NYRW and she founded Redstockings and she’s like one of my actual heroes.”

“So go talk to her,” Sherlock said, the ‘obviously’ implied.

“God no, she’s way too cool,” Joan shook her head. “And what would I even say?“

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“No I’m not, I’m being sensible and besides, it’s never good to meet your heroes-“

“Hey Shulamith!” Sherlock called and before Joan could properly hit her, or even properly react at all, Shulamith had turned around and smiling, detached from her friend and pushed her way over to them.

“Hello sisters,” she said and then looked at Joan again. “Hello! We met at…”

“The Title IX protest this summer,” Joan filled in and Shulamith’s eyes lit up.

“Yes, yes, we did! Please remind me your name.”

“Joan.”

“Right, of course, Joan! You and your friends were so incredibly helpful. It’s so good to see you again,” Shulamith said warmly. “Who are you here with?”

“I came with my school’s feminist group,” Joan said simply and Shulamith nodded. “We were trying to join up with NYRF-“

“And you found us,” Shulamith laughed. “It’s so nice to hear your high school has a feminist organization-“

“Joan started ours,” Sherlock spoke up and Joan blushed.

Shulamith looked impressed. “Well that’s excellent,” she beamed and Joan looked ready to faint. “What sort of actions have you planned?”

“Not much, we just-“

“Joan created and is now coaching our school’s first female soccer team,” Sherlock said and Shulamith clapped Joan on the back who, by this point, was more red than pale.

“Incredible,” Shulamith praised. “We need more women like you. Gives me hope for the future.”

“Thank you so much, I just-“ Joan choked out. “Just doing my best.”

“Shulie!” someone yelled across the mass and Shulamith looked over her shoulder before turning back. “I’m so sorry, I need to wrangle somebody or something apparently. But hold on a moment-“ she asked, digging in her backpack before coming up with a pen. She took Joan’s hand, pushed back the sleeve of her denim jacket and scrawled out a series of numbers on her palm.

“Here is my number,” Shulamith said. “Please be in touch. We have meetings a few times a month and I would love _love_ to see you there. Both of you,” she added with a smile at Sherlock and then disappeared into the crowd.

Joan looked ready to die. “I am never washing my hand,” she whispered and Sherlock smirked at her, right until Joan blinked and smacked her arm.

“I cannot believe you just did that!” she yelled.

“Your welcome, jeez. Don’t have a fucking cow over it,” Sherlock grumbled, rubbing her arm. Joan smacked the other arm for good measure and then pulled the brunette into a hug.

“That was tuff, Sherlock. Really tuff,” she said, pulling back. “Thank you. I’m lucky I have you.”

It was a bit surreal, all of it. The crowd around them chanting and singing, raising their posters and pushing forward and there, in the middle, the two of them holding each other, Joan smiling at her like she hung the moon. Sherlock swallowed, her eyes drawn for a moment to Joan’s lips- chapped from the cold and stretched into a smile- before snapping back up to her eyes and then to the figures behind Joan’s head.

“We’re being summoned,” she said, and when had her voice gotten so hoarse? Joan turned around to see Kelsie and some of the other girls waving them over. Joan squeezed her arm and then dropped her hand to interlock with Sherlock’s, dragging them over to their friends.

Kelsie pounced as soon as they were in earshot. “Was that-“

“Yes!” Joan squealed and the girls shrieked at each other for a minute. Thankfully, Marcie came over to say, “There’s some movement up at the front, let’s go join,” and the group moved out.

Sherlock had expected Joan to drop her hand once they were all in the same place, singing the songs they’d learned and swaying together as one mass but she didn’t. She held on all through the protest, through the next hour, and then later on the train home, all of them squeezing themselves into a corner of the car, laughing and sharing their stories of the march- Joan was still holding her hand.

“It’s hard to believe the election is tomorrow,” Joan said suddenly and Sherlock turned to look at her. “And will any of it matter? Nixon’s gonna win. He’s had four years to take us out of this disaster and he still hasn’t yet. What’s to say he will now?”

“Hey,” Sherlock tried, nudging her where they’re shoulders were touching. “That’s my line. You’re meant to be the optimist.”

Joan nudged her back with a small smile. “I’m trying to be. The protest was beautiful though, wasn’t it?”

Sherlock hadn’t thought of it in those terms, the cold November wind mussing her hair and leaving her hands cracked, her voice all scratched up from singing and shouting, her arms and legs sporting small bruises from all the pushing and moving. “Yeah,” she said and meant it. It had been. “It’s…good. Being a part of something bigger than yourself. Even if it doesn’t succeed. At least it was heard.”

Joan squeezed their hands and then lay her head on Sherlock’s shoulder, the whole of her warming Sherlock’s left side. “I’m glad you were there.”

_I am too_ she thought back but didn’t say anything as the M train sped on into Brooklyn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shulamith Firestone was a real person and really worth reading about- [HERE](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/15/death-of-a-revolutionary) being an excellent place to start.  
> The protest the girls attended isn't 'real' per-say but even in the 70's, and especially right before Nixon's re-election, anti-war protests were still pretty common, New York having always been a hot spot for political activity.


	6. Chapter 6

The posters did go up in the hallway but suddenly, seemingly overnight, the feminist club had become real in the eyes of the school and with its launch to legitimacy came the sudden celebrity of its founders. Joan and Sherlock had always gotten stares when they walked to their lockers but generally it was because of Joan’s pins and jackets, or because someone had gotten on the wrong end of one of Sherlock’s diatribes. Now though, the stares came with high fives and whistles and, memorably, a hard pat on the back by one of the football receivers.

“Frig yeah, Watson. Stick it to the man,” the broad-shouldered boy cheered as he let Joan go and kept heading towards his locker.

“Join the feminist club!” Joan called back as the two headed down to lunch. She turned to Sherlock, her eyes dancing. “This is ape,” she muttered, barely holding back a wild grin. “How did this happen?”

“You are famous, Joan Watson,” Sherlock teased right back. “I might have to start making appointments just to see you.”

“That’s bogus,” she giggled and Sherlock, as she always did, made another little mark in her mind at having prompted the noise. “Who knew that all we had to do to advertise was call Nixon a pig? And here I’ve been doing that for free. Oh, hey Kelsie!”

Kelsie, along with Marcie, Jeana, and two other dy- _girls_ that Sherlock couldn’t name, waved them over to their lunch table and Joan took her arm and stopped there for a moment on their way to the lunch counter.

“Are you seeing this shit?” Jeana asked, wide-eyed and Joan nodded.

“We can’t believe it either,” Marcie spoke up. “We need to hold an extra meeting this week, just to take tally.”

“That’s not all,” Joan started, holding court as the whole table turned to her. “No-one freak out but I called Shulamith-“

The blonde paused obligingly as the table erupted into shrieks and then went on. “-and she invited us to the NYRF meeting this Sunday. It’s at the Women’s center over by West 20th. We have to go; I want to announce it to the club.”

“We’re real. This is all real,” Kelsie beamed. “We’re not just a bunch of crazy teenage girls in a classroom anymore. We’re a real club.”

“We keep this up, the administration will have to start taking us seriously,” Joan interjected. “We can start pushing for funding, busses to rallies, better sign-making materials-“

“We can get real glue-guns-“

“Thursday? Thursday? Meeting this Thursday?” one of the girls suggested and suddenly they’d switched into planning mode.

“Tonight, my house, we’ll make posters and put them up tomorrow-“

“Tomorrow’s Wednesday, not enough time. Let’s go now; we can make at least six each before lunch ends. Library?” Marcie said, already standing up and everyone around her started gathering their stuff.

“We’ll meet you up, Sherlock and I are just gonna grab something to go- “Joan said and everyone nodded as they took off down the hall.

They were barely out of earshot, stuffing some apples in Joan’s backpack, when the blonde paused and looked up at Sherlock with big eyes.

“This isn’t too much for you, is it? You just came to one little meeting and now I’m dragging you to protests and making you a part of the war counsel-“

“Joan,” Sherlock cut her off, even as her own thoughts were racing. Yes, she hadn’t signed up for any of this and yes, maybe she still didn’t know how she felt about any of this. Whether she believed that anything they were doing would change things, whether this more equal future Joan kept fantasizing about could even exist. But she believed in Joan, with everything in her, and for now that seemed enough to be going on.

“When have you ever known me to do anything I didn’t want to do?” she teased.

“All the time,” Joan shot back but she smiled with it so it didn’t hurt at all. “C’mon, we’ve got posters to color, you mook,” she said, slinging her arm around Sherlock’s shoulders and the two of them fled the cafeteria.

 

That Friday’s practice, Joan drilled the girls harder than Sherlock had ever seen her do before, running them through exercise after trial until even Sherlock felt exhausted just listening to them. The reason for the sudden intensity was revealed at the end, though, when Joan let her heap of warriors slump to the grass, boneless.

“Exciting announcement,” Joan said, full of pep and energy and Sherlock honestly had no idea how. “We are going to have our very first competitive game this coming Saturday!”  

The field erupted into twitters and whispers and Joan put up a hand to silence them. “It’s been hard, finding anyone to compete with us. We are, essentially, the first public school in Brooklyn with a girls’ soccer team. And without a bus, it’s been hard to figure out travel. But, the girl’s team at P.S. 291 in the Bronx has agreed to come to us!”

“We can totally take a Bronx team!” one of the girls shouted and laughter accompanied her pronouncement along with some cheers and one boo.

“This is our very first, and possibly only, competitive game this semester. So, we will be practicing hard. Every day we have this field, we are staying out here until they kick us out. And tomorrow, practice at the Starr street park 8 am. Anyone have any issues with that?” Joan barked, hands held on her hips and something in the pit of Sherlock’s stomach lurched uncomfortably as she felt the back of her neck heat despite the chill.

There was silence and then, suddenly, the whole team was cheering and rushing up to high-five their stern captain. Joan laughed loud enough for it to ring across the field and Sherlock set to packing up her bag. It was going to be that kind of weekend then.

Later during their shower-hangout, Joan paused in her babbling over possible strategies and foot plays to peek her head out at Sherlock. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you earlier; I only got confirmation from their coach like an hour before practice. Are you mad? We didn’t have anything this weekend, yeah?”

“I’m not upset at all,” Sherlock assured her. “But I may meet you after your little practice. Getting up before ten on a Saturday is the real crime.”

Joan giggled and went back into her shower. “I just can’t believe any of this. First the club, then Shulamith and now soccer? Everything’s coming up roses all of a sudden.”

“It is suspicious,” Sherlock agreed and Joan turned off the water, reaching out to grab her towel before padding out to find her clothes.

“That’s not what I meant, you brooding Byronic,” she said, picking up her underwear and setting her towel to the side. Sherlock turned her head obligingly. “I meant, it’s nice as in a ‘things don’t usually go this well for us,’ kind of way, not a ‘what’s gonna go wrong?’ type of way.”

“And that’s your mistake,” Sherlock said. “You can be comically caught off guard when all our good-luck crumbles; I prefer being prepared.”

“Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine,” Joan grumbled back, sitting down on the bench to tie her shoes and Sherlock turned to face her again. “So, what are your theories?”

“Nothing yet, but not enough data. Need to figure out motive first, before I can untangle the specific nature of the distraction.”

“Aside from that and bunker-building, what are we doing this weekend? Any cases on, my favorite detective?” Joan asked and Sherlock let a small smile slip.

“The better questions are, do you have a red dress and how convincing is your southern accent?” she checked.

Joan smirked right back at her. “I never told you I got an aunt down in Kentucky?” she drawled and Sherlock felt that curl again in the pit of her, as she jumped off the wooden benches and snatched up both their bags.

“Well then why are we still here?” she shouted, already halfway to the door. “The game, Watson, is on!”

 

They’d all agreed to meet at 7pm by the Knickerbocker avenue stop to take the train together over to the meeting and Sherlock and Joan ran up, panting, just two minutes past the mark with their hair a mess, dirt on their palms and, in Joan’s case, a pair of fake eyelashes only on her left eye.

“We were gonna leave without you,” Marcie chided, pulling Joan into a hug and then quickly letting go. “Girl, we are washing your pits in the bathroom when we get there. What have you two been doing, running a marathon?”

“Essentially,” Joan gasped, sparing a look at Sherlock as the two of them descended into giggles again, leaning on each other for support. “Let’s catch a train and I’ll fill you in.”

The women’s center was already packed by the time they got there, a contingency of about thirty girls from the club, and they all made their way inside. They weren’t the youngest in the room, some women had come with their daughters and a few pre-teens lingered by the door, but Joan, suddenly shy, slipped her hand in Sherlock’s and the genius didn’t let go. The hall was teeming with women of different ages and races, all talking and smiling and eating from a snack table in the corner. Three women with blue-black pins sat at a table near the door and one of them beckoned them over.

“Hi, welcome to the New York Radical Feminists meeting. I’m Marta, where are you guys from?” a slight, Hispanic woman asked them, several sign-up sheets in front of her.

“We’re part of the Bushwhick High feminist club,” Joan offered, forcing confidence into her voice. “We meet Shulamith at the rally on Monday and she invited us-“

“Oh, sorry if that came out harsh, you don’t an invitation or anything. Welcome,” Marta smiled warmly at them, “We’re gonna get started in a few minutes with some general remarks before splitting off. Until then, grab a snack or a drink if you’d like. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter if you wanna stay informed of what we’re up to- a year’s subscription is $3.00.”

“I’d like to,” one of the pencil-pushers in a pleated skirt, Grace maybe?, spoke up and a few girls came over to Marta to sign their names and fish a few dollars out of their purses. Joan waited patiently in line to sign her own name and address before dragging Sherlock over to grab a cup of what appeared to be cheap, red wine before an older woman stood up on a chair to usher them towards the circle of chairs.

Joan settled Sherlock next to her, their hands still interlocked, towards the back of the room and the room chattered amongst itself until a woman in a loose tan sweater with her black hair down stood up and the room quieted around her.

“It’s my turn to get tonight started so I’ll do my best,” she said, her voice clear and strong over the silent, crowded room. “Hi, I’m Anne Koedt, welcome to the November meeting of the New York Radical Feminists.”

She paused as the room broke into applause, Joan not letting go of Sherlock’s hand as she clapped and whooped politely. “Is this anyone’s first meeting?” Anne asked and, hesitantly, the Bushwhick girls raised their hands along with a few other scattered hands around the room. “Cool, so I guess I’ll give a little bit of the shpiel again, yeah?”

There was some laughter around the room and one choked guffaw from the woman sitting next to Anne who, upon closer inspection, Sherlock realized was Shulamith in her wide, circular glasses with her bushy hair held back in two braid.

“Radical feminism, for anyone who’s confused who we are or what we’re doing, recognizes the oppression of women as a fundamental political oppression wherein women are categorized as an inferior class based upon their sex. It is the aim of radical feminism to organize politically to destroy this sex class system,” she started before someone whooped “yeah it is,” and Anne had to bite back a smile before continuing.

“Radical feminism is political, yeah, because it recognizes that a group of individuals, i.e. men,” and here she paused as half the room snickered, “have organized together for power over women, and that they have set up institution s throughout society to maintain this power. The political oppression of women has its own class dynamic. As women, we are living in a male power structure, and our roles become necessarily a function of men. The services we supply are service s to the male ego. We are rewarded according to how well we perform these services. Our skill -- our profession -- is our ability to be feminine: and that is, dainty, sweet, passive, helpless, and sexy-- in other words, everything to help reassure man that he is primary.”

“Fuck we do,” Joan muttered under her breathe and Sherlock had to lean her mouth into Joan’s shoulder to hide her grin.

“If we do not choose to· perform these ego services,” Anne had kept going, some words getting lost in the middle, “but instead assert ourselves as primary to ourselves, we are denied the necessary access to alternatives wherein we can manifest our self- assertion. It is not only through denying women human alternatives that men are able to maintain their positions of power. It is politically necessary for any oppressive group to convince the oppressed that they are in fact inferior, and therefore deserve their situation. So, that’s where we all come from tonight.”

“Liberation!” someone yelled and Anne spared a grin down at Shulamith before continuing.

“That’s what we’re here to do; tonight, and every night. For the sake of our own liberation, we must learn to overcome this damage done to ourselves by internalization. We must begin to reverse the systematic crushing of women’s egos by constructing alternate selves that are healthy, independent, and self-assertive. We must, in short, help each other to transfer the ultimate power of judgement about the value of our lives from men to ourselves.

“We don’t have leaders or anything like that, so don’t ask me any questions or anything. But that’s a little about who we are for the new sisters. Now, agenda for tonight,” here she paused to take out a list from her pocket and unfold it and the crowd around her burst into applause and cheers. She took it good-naturedly before raising her hand and reading from her list. “First, we’re gonna take a few minutes to talk about feelings from Monday’s rally and then split into groups of no more than fifteen to discuss action plans for the January march to Washington. That means everything from transportation to signs to sit-in ideas. We may reconvene at the end, we may not depending on time so make sure someone in your group is taking notes and drops those notes off with tonight’s unofficial secretary Betty, in the back, so we can compile and address them at December’s meeting. That all clear?”

A chorus of “Yes”s filled the room and Anne let out a small smile. “Great, let’s get started,” she said, taking a seat. “We’ll go around the circle clockwise and if you have any concern or comment you want to raise about our response at Monday’s rally, now’s your time.”

“This is, wow, it’s-“Joan whispered in her ear, tripping over her words, as someone near to Anne began talking about how collaboration with male allies should be handled.

“A lot?” Sherlock offered back and Joan nodded, her face so close to Sherlock’s that the motion tickled her blonde curls against Sherlock’s cheek.

“Yeah, kinda,” Joan whispered back. “Not like, in a bad way. Just in a…lot way.”

“Do you need to step out?” Sherlock checked and Joan shook her head emphatically.

“Are you kidding me, no way,” she said. “Just, when we split into groups, you’ll stay with me, yeah?”

“I assumed that was a given,” Sherlock murmured and Joan beamed at her.

“Cool. Cool, cool,” she whispered back and they turned back to face the circle and listen to a woman in tweed pants comment on making sure all signs were either repurposed or recycled after every rally.

Everyone seemed to split according to who they were near to in the room and Sherlock and Joan found themselves pulled into a little group in their corner with one other Bushwhick girl and twelve different women from all over the city.

“Maybe let’s go around and say names before we get started?” suggested a woman in a red sweater-dress with her afro combed out. “I’m Yvette, I’m a student at Columbia uptown. I don’t mind taking notes, if no one else wants to.”

She nodded at Joan who was sitting to her left and Joan cleared her throat over the din of the whole room talking and laughing at the same time. “Hi, I’m Joan. I’m a student at Bushwhick High.” She nudged Sherlock with her shoulder.

“I’m Sherlock, also at Bushwhick- “

“Sorry, did you say Sherlock?” a woman across from them, middle-aged with gray at her temples and a clean, simple wedding ring on her left hand, asked. Sherlock nodded, uncomfortable. “I’ve never heard a name like that before; it’s really pretty.”

“It’s old English, I think,” she offered. “My family’s originally from York.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” the woman said genially. “My name is Susan, I’m a mom over in Soho- “

“Your family’s from England?” Joan murmured, turning to her.

“So my mother always said,” Sherlock shrugged, aware this was the first time she’d ever mentioned her mother in front of Joan. “We came to Newport back in the early 1800s, though.”

“I didn’t know you’re from Rhode Island,” Joan whispered, sounding a bit caught off-guard. “Though I should have guessed with your accent-“

“What accent?” Sherlock glared, self-conscious but Joan only smiled.

“Exactly,” she grinned and then turned as Yvette took out a pad and pen and cleared her throat.

“Okay, we talked a little bit about this at the last meeting but we’re planning for the march on Washington in January, that’s two months from now so not that much time to decide.”

“Yvette, maybe we should clarify why we’re marching on Washington,” an elderly woman who’d introduced herself as Ruth spoke up, sparing a glance to where Joan and Sherlock were exchanging confused but hesitant glances.

“Right, of course, thank you Ruth,” Yvette smiled. “NYRF is planning to march in anticipation of the legal decision for Roe v Wade that’s expected to come right after the inauguration, maybe a day or two after. So maybe march down for the inauguration, start with a Nixon protest to get the energy going and then camp outside the supreme court? It’ll either be a celebration or a protest but we want to be there regardless.”

Joan was already leaning forward with ideas but Sherlock squeezed her hand to call her back. “Roe v Wade?” she whispered, unsure, but Ruth heard her and reached out to pat her hand.

“Have you been living under a rock, sweetie? It’s been all over the news,” she smiled and Sherlock didn’t know how to explain that yes, she read the newspaper every day but she really didn’t care much for any story without a dead body or a missing person in it. “It’s that big abortion case that’s going to trial. Bout time the federal government weighed in on it, abortion’s been legal here in New York almost two years now.”

Sherlock felt everything inside her clench and refuse to release as all her organs rearranged and her throat throbbed. Joan was speaking, something about greyhound busses and tents, but she sounded like a voice at the end of a very long tunnel. _Abortion? When did we start talking about abortion? That’s never what this was. We were just supposed to be talking about men and roles and maybe politics and capitalism. Capitalism sounds so nice right now, we could talk about that. Who cares about abortion- not us. Not men. They don’t even have wombs, this is ridiculous_

_You’re having a panic attack_ her brain whispered softly at her and she felt everything she’d eaten that day, half an apple, most of Joan’s fries and the water she’d drunk earlier, teeming at the base of her stomach. Joan had no idea, no one seemed to, all caught up in planning and organizing with Joan-

_Joan, focus on her. Look at her hair; isn’t it odd how one hair could have so many different shades of blonde. And in this light, it’s terrible lighting, but it makes some of it look silver, like she’s old. Old, Ruth, deduce Ruth, 67 or 68, married once, died six years ago still wears the ring, lives alone- of course alone, tag sticking out the back of her sweater, no one to tell her to fix it- three daughters, all live far from here, one in Toronto, bought her that sweater- look at the tag- as a gift, yes a gift, why a gift- cashmere, nicer than she’d buy herself, look at her shoes, worn at the arches, more than six years old, won’t buy new shoes, certainly won’t buy herself a cashmere sweater so gift. Three daughters, why three- yes necklace, with three little girls in silver, sentimental, having trouble with her hip-_

“Sherlock?” Joan called her back, squeezing her hand and Sherlock resurfaced with a slight gasp, the world around her swimming back into focus. The group was still chattering around them, having moved on to ideas of sit-ins here in New York in the meantime, but Joan only had her eyes on her. “You alright, babe, you looked a little lost. In your head again?”

“Yeah, sorry, just- in my head,” she coughed, trying a weak smile, but Joan indulged her and just squeezed her hand again.

“I actually have to run to the bathroom; do you want to come with?” she asked but Sherlock shook her head. She understood by now that going to the bathroom with another girl was part of some sort of pack-bonding exercise but she didn’t think she was up for it right then. The bright lights and Joan making conversation- it might do her head better to sit in silence for a beat.

“I’ll save your seat,” she said instead and Joan smiled back, leaned in to kiss her cheek, and peeled out towards the bathroom, stopping to collect Kelsie from her group on the way.

“You guys are real cute,” the girl on Sherlock’s other side, her hair back in a sleek ponytail, offered, leaning in to smile at her. “How long have you been together?”

“Oh, we’re not- “Sherlock spluttered, for the first time in her life at a complete loss of what to say. “She’s just- we’re just friends.”

“Uh hu,” the girl nodded, a smirk playing in her eyes. “It’s okay here, you know. No one’s gonna give you crap about it. It’s cool to be a lesbian here- mean’s you’re outside the male-sex economy or something like that.”

“Right, cool, thanks for that,” Sherlock said, at a loss for anything to respond, relieved when Anne’s voice echoed over the room.

“The meeting is technically over, but we have the space till half-past so feel free to stay around and talk if you want. Remember to bring your notes to me or to Shuli or Betty. Have a safe night,” she called out over the din and then sat back down as everyone started talking to fill the sudden silence.

She sat alone for a few minutes in the center of the crowd, as Yvette checked some last details with them, put the finishing touches on their group’s notes, and stood up to bring them to Betty. Her body felt less likely to revolt and her hands had stopped shaking, instead lying still and slightly damp in her lap.

“Hey,” Joan was suddenly back by her side. She’d put on lipstick in the bathroom and it made her mouth softer. “A bunch of us are going to a bar downtown. You wanna come with?”

Sherlock blinked up at her. “I’m not twenty-one,” she said, at a loss for any other words.

“Lucky for us then that you’re cute,” Joan smirked and Sherlock felt caught off-guard again. “It’s fine, it’s a queer bar. No one checks ID. You in?”

“I-“ she started and Joan seemed to get the gist of what she meant _reading my mind, yet again_ and grabbed up Sherlock’s hand in hers.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll stay with you the whole time, promise,” she vowed and Sherlock found herself nodding as Joan pulled her outside to where a gaggle of girls in leather and jean were waiting. Marcie snubbed out her cigarette and pulled Sherlock into a rough, one-armed hug.

“Sherly, you’re coming too? Bitchin,” she cackled, and Sherlock tried a smile back. “Let’s fucking bail,” Marcie called out and the herd moved south towards the train station.

“Thanks for coming,” Joan murmured, grabbing her hand as they ran down the stairs to the platform. “You don’t mind, do you? That’s it’s a dyke bar? Women will probably hit on you and shit.”

Sherlock shook her head. “No they won’t,” she said and then pressed into Joan’s shoulder as a train flew past. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“Get bent. Since when are you Ms. Modest?” Joan teased her, piling into the train car behind her. Sherlock grabbed the pole in front of them and with the hand not holding hers, Joan rested her palm on Sherlock’s waist for balance.

She could feel the heat of Joan’s skin through her jacket and the denim. _It’s the wine_ , she thought as they turned a sharp corner and Joan’s fingers dug in deeper. _Makes her handsy. Good to know for the future._

“I’m serious, I don’t really get ‘hit on,’” Sherlock explained over the din of the car. “I’ve been told I have somewhat of a cold face.”

“You’re so full of it,” Joan giggled and then _that was deliberate_ pulled Sherlock into her body for a quasi-hug. “It’s gonna be so friggin fun. We’ll dance, yeah? You’ll dance with me?”

Sherlock would do no such thing. “Of course, Joan,” she said and Joan held tighter as they were whisked downtown.

The bar was right by Washington Square park and Sherlock could see couples wandering off towards the darker benches, hand in hand. Women littered the sidewalk outside, smoking and laughing and, in the case of a girl in a leather jacket and a redhead in too little clothes for this weather, making out against the side of the guardrail. Sherlock felt something akin to fear curl in the base of her stomach and Joan only held her hand tighter in hers, following the crowd towards the stairs.

Blocking the door stood two men dressed sharply and they smiled down at the sixteen or so girls that had come from the Women’s center. “You all over 21?” one of them asked in a thick accent and everyone nodded. “Alright then, have a good night,” he replied, smirking and held the door open as they all piled in.

Sherlock had never seen two women slow dancing before. Like a couple. But there in the low lighting she could make out several couples doing just that, a woman all dolled up in lace and a skirt and another with short hair and black leather holding each other like she remembered her parents doing at charity balls and black-tie events, swaying to the music.

“Pick your jaw up off the floor whenever you’re ready and let’s go drink,” Joan giggled in her ear and then dragged her, past the dancefloor and a pool table where a woman with heavy eye-makeup seemed to be raking in bets, to a bar on the other side.

“Two beers, please,” Joan called out to the woman behind the bar and that’s when Sherlock realized.

“There are no men here,” she murmured and Joan somehow heard her and giggled again. It was infectious, that laugh.

“Good job, Einstein, it’s a women’s bar,” Joan teased, catching the two beers that slid down towards them and handing one to Sherlock.

“No, I know,” Sherlock bristled. “I just thought- behind the bar or maybe-“

“They don’t let men in,” Joan explained. “Like at all. It’s a female-only space. It’s pretty rare, most gay bars are mixed. And mostly male at that. Hard to find somewhere that’s only women.”

“Hm,” Sherlock responded thoughtfully, taking a sip and then promptly spitting all over herself. “What is this, it’s vile,” she hissed and Joan descended into hyena laughter.

“You would hate beer, you spoiled queen,” she cackled and Sherlock found herself smiling in spite of herself, grabbing some napkins and mopping herself up. “I’ll get you a cocktail, on me,” she insisted as Sherlock moved to fish her wallet out. “Maybe a vodka cranberry?”

They stayed that way for a while, drinking and watching couples dance and spin under the lights. The music moved from slow to fast to slow again and Joan seemed to know the words to every song, humming along or shouting the lyrics right into Sherlock’s ear, giggling as Sherlock pushed her away.

“More drinks?” Joan smirked, now a little unsteady after her and Sherlock’s beer. Sherlock opened her mouth to reply when a smooth voice interjected,

“Would you mind if I bought you one?”

The pair of them looked up like deer in the headlights to find a woman leaning on the bar, smiling at Joan. She was a clean long line in black slacks and a half-open button-down and her hair fell just below her ears. _Butch_ thought Sherlock, unbidden, but Joan was blinking up at her in a way that made her heart lurch.

“Yeah, alright,” she said, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear and the woman smiled.

“What can I get you?”

“A beer’s fine,” Joan said, never taking her eyes off her and the woman leaned across the bar to call out “two vodka tonics,” with a secret smile.

“You’ll like it, trust me,” she said, grabbing the two glasses and handing one to Joan before offering the other to Sherlock, who shook her head and held up her still half-full vodka cranberry. The woman shrugged and took a sip of the drink herself. “I’m Mary. What’s your name?”

“Joan,” the blonde practically fawned and Sherlock held a grimace in her cheek. “That’s Sherlock, we’re friends from school.”

“What college are you in?” Mary asked politely and Joan didn’t skip a beat.

“I’m in my last year at Brooklyn, Sherlock goes out of state. Just visiting for the weekend,” she offered and Mary made it clear which one of them she was interested in by following that up with, “What are you studying?” rather than ‘what college out-of-state?’.

“Medicine,” Joan replied, now twirling a loose piece of hair around her index finger and Sherlock was actually going to vomit. She blocked out the sound of them making inane conversation and turned her attentions to the pool table. Heavy-eye-makeup was down to two stripes with her opponent holding three solids but she was cheating, had to be, otherwise why was she carrying two small weights in the back pocket of her skirt-

“Sherlock. Sherlock-“ Joan was tapping her on the arm and she blinked herself back into the focus. _How much time had gone by?_ was answered by the now two empty glasses next to Joan’s arm and the unsteady look in her eyes. “Mary and I are gonna go dance, you alright?”

“Peachy,” she smiled back and Joan squeezed her arm before letting Mary take her hand and lead her out onto the dance floor, giggling into her shoulder. Sherlock watched them for a minute, as Joan let Mary spin her in a tight circle before moving one hand dangerously low on her waist, Joan tripping over her own feet once, a bit drunk, before laughing again and forcing Mary into a spin of her own.

“Hey,” a woman suddenly beside her, short red bob and ripped jeans, spoke up. “Can I buy you-“

“Not gay,” Sherlock blurted and then, feeling herself burst into a blush, backtracked. “I mean, thank you. I’m not- not gay I’m just with a friend.”

“Oh, alright,” the woman said amiably. “Have a nice night.”

“You too,” Sherlock murmured as the woman walked away. Her eyes sought out Joan in the crowd again and she blinked as she found her, one hand combing back Mary’s hair, making out with the taller woman in the center of the dancefloor. Mary, for her part, had slipped one hand below the waistband of Joan’s jeans to cup her hip and had the other tugging her up by her ass.

Sherlock watched them for the better part of five minutes, unclear within herself what she felt, before glancing down at her watch and starting. It was near twelve, Mycroft would be home soon with no idea where she was. A little harried, she pushed her way through the sweaty crowd and reached out to tap Joan on the shoulder.

Joan spun around immediately. “Sherlock!” she beamed, Mary’s hand still just underneath her waistline. “What’s up?”

“I need to go, it’s getting late,” she shouted back over the noise and Joan nodded.

“Okay, let me walk you home.”

That was not what she’d expected her to say. “What?” Sherlock shot back but Joan had already turned to speak to Mary.

“I gotta make sure my friend gets home safe,” she said, her palm finding its way into Sherlock’s. “Do you…want to come back with us? I live just around the corner, we could have some tea or something.”

Mary smiled down at her. “Tea sounds nice. Where do you live?”

“Bushwhick,” Joan replied. “It’s only like a half-hour on the M.”

“I know Bushwhick pretty well,” Mary said as they started out of the bar. “Used to have a close friend who lived over by Hart St.”

“I’m over by Linden,” Joan exchanged. “What’s her name, maybe we know her?”

“You might not, she moved in ‘64,” Mary said, keeping conversation going as they swiped in and went down to wait for the train.

The platform was busy but they made their way down to a darker end that was close to empty to wait. Sherlock stared as a mouse scuttled over the tracks and then turned when she heard a small noise.

Joan and Mary had gone back to kissing, sloppy now that Joan was properly drunk, with Mary’s hand in her hair and both their eyes closed. And yet, still, Joan kept hold of her hand tight in her small one, their fingers interlocked since they’d left the bar. There was probably something _not good_ about that, holding on to your best friend’s hand while her tongue was down someone else’s throat but Sherlock wasn’t going to be the one to raise that issue.

They kissed until the train came and Joan kept her palm in Sherlock’s.

Knickerbocker Ave was closer to her than Joan so the odd trio walked the four blocks to her apartment before stopping outside. Joan let go of Mary with a squeeze and saw her to the front door of her building.

“You alright?” Joan checked and Sherlock nodded. “Did you have a good time tonight? Sorry about, well- next time I’ll only dance with you, yeah?”

“I’m fine, it was nice,” Sherlock pacified. “What about you, you sober enough for this?”

“What?” Joan asked, tilting her head in a manner close to comical. “Oh yeah, yeah, she’s so hot,” she whispered in sotto voice and Sherlock could see Mary smirking around the cigarette she’d just lit at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you.”

And with a kiss to Sherlock’s cheek, she bounded down the stairs and into the waiting mouth of Mary, giggling as she took the cigarette from her.

“These are so bad for you,” she scolded, and Mary grabbed her hand as they headed down the street towards Joan’s apartment. “You expect me to kiss you when your mouth tastes like an ashtray?”

Sherlock watched them turn the corner before unlocking the door and heading upstairs. She let herself into the apartment and then stopped short at the sight of Mycroft, in his white beater with sweaty hair, caught mid-pace by the kitchen table.

“Where were you?” he asked, trying for casual but missing the mark by a mile.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock let out, surprised to find how much she was. “I was out with friends and I lost track of time.”

She was still caught in the doorway so she took the finals steps into the apartment and closed the door behind her. Signs of Mycroft’s worrying were everywhere, tread-marks in the worn carpet, unfolded button-up on the arm of the sofa, telephone at an angle from where he’d picked it up and set it down and picked it up again before realizing there was no one he could even call.

Sherlock closed her eyes rather than think about what any of it meant. “I’m going to bed, goodnight,” she sighed, picking her way towards the bathroom. Mycroft said nothing, they’d both already had the fight in minds.

_I was worried sick!_

_No one told you to be._

_I had no idea where you were. You could have been dead and how would I have known? I’ve given up everything, everything to take care of you and you can’t even find a payphone to let me know you’re alive._

_Stop trying to mother me. You’re not my mother. You’re not even my guardian._

_Sherlock-_

_Now you decide to pay attention? Now you decide to worry about me? Where was your worry when I_ actually needed it-

“Sherlock?” Mycroft’s voice said, followed by a knock on the bathroom door. Sherlock paused in brushing her teeth but said nothing. _I’m listening but I’m not a part of this conversation_.

She heard Mycroft sigh, the softest noise, before he cleared his throat. “I left money on the counter if you could pick up some milk and fruit tomorrow after school.”

“Okay,” she said back through the door and then there was the sound of shuffling as he made his way back to the living room to unfold his bed. Sherlock closed her eyes. Right now, what was Joan doing? The image came, unbidden, of Joan naked on the couch in her little apartment, the couch they’d sat with their tangled feet, Mary’s head lost somewhere between her thighs. Sherlock didn’t know the intricacies of that, not enough to imagine the details or what might come next but that was enough for her to spit out her toothpaste and rinse her mouth into the porcelain sink.

_We could have her, if we wanted_ she thought as stripped and tucked herself into bed, reaching to turn out the light. _But we don’t want her. So why begrudge her to someone else?_ But something about it rang hollow and untrue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some fun historical notes!
> 
> The New York Radical Feminists was a real organization based all over the city but they did have major meetings at the Women's center on 20th St. in lower Manhattan. It was founded by best friends and general badasses Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt but, by this point in 1972, they had actually already left the group because of organizational disagreements. NYRF was active all the way through the early 1980s though, so not absurd for young Joan to idolize them.
> 
> Anne's speech was lifted almost verbatim from the NYRF manifesto that she wrote. It's a much longer piece and well-worth a read if you ever have time and want to get angry about the patriarchy. It unfortunately goes without saying that NYRF, and the second-wave feminism at the time in general, didn't really have space for non-gender conforming activists and radicals and that's one of the incredibly problematic facts of this time period. So take care of yourself if you plan on doing further research.
> 
> The bar the girls go to is based strongly off of a lesbian bar called Bonnie and Clyde’s in the west village which was one of the only fully-lesbian bars in the city at the time. Most were, as Joan says, mixed and primarily occupied by gay men (and supposedly much raunchier).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gotta be honest- this whole chapter is just Joan and Sherlock dancing around in their socks to music from the 60s. 
> 
> CW: safe and consensual drug and alcohol usage (or as safe as such usage can be)  
> Mentions of not-so-safe drug use  
> Use of a period-typical racial slur

December blew in milder than expected but with a cold bite that Sherlock, in her coat grown too small for her around the ankles, hadn’t been fully prepared for. She took to nicking Mycroft’s oversized cable-knits and pairing them with an old pair of jeans to the effect that she came into school one day and Joan stopped her by her locker to go,

“Lookin’ good, kid,” an idea that she firmly denied and more firmly scorned but it didn’t stop her from paying more attention to her reflection in the small bathroom mirror and once, memorably, pinching her own, pale cheeks to give them something of a blush.

It wasn’t that she’d grown vain, or appearance-preoccupied by any means. That would have been ridiculous. She’d just suddenly found the sight of herself no longer made her want to throw-up everything she’d eaten that day. Thanks to Joan’s insistent prodding at lunch, she’d put on a few pounds and it showed in her face; her eyes no longer quite as sunken. Her hair had grown another inch and brushing her teeth one night, she’d found little lines, barely more than faint imprints, around her mouth _smile lines_ that had never had any reason to be there before.

“You’re humming, you know?” Joan giggled at her from the stove, pausing in whatever cooking nonsense she was doing- stirring or something- Sherlock really didn’t pay much attention to the process until there was dinner in front of her.

“Sorry,” she said back from her curled up position on the pink, overstuffed couch, looking up from her book.

“Didn’t mean you should stop or anything. Just pointing it out,” Joan said around a smile. She’d started following Joan home more after school, now that the cold had made it too unpleasant to loiter around their outdoor haunts. It was about the same it’d always been, only now Joan insisted on feeding her and they sat unbearably close to each other when they ate, a hazy sort of intimacy coloring the nights.

“What are you hummin, anyway?” she asked, spooning something into bowls, oh it was macaroni tonight, and coming over to curl across from her on the couch.

“Beethoven’s fifth,” Sherlock confessed, reaching over to take her bowl, just to hold something warm between her hands. She missed her violin with an ache; it had hardly fit in the one suitcase they’d packed in a rush the night they fled. It had soothed her mind in a way little else had.

“Of course you are,” Joan chuckled, handing over a fork and the two ate in silence for a few beats before Joan set her bowl down on the floor and stood up to wander over to the record player in the corner. “I have been neglecting this for too long,” she said decisively, crouching down to rifle through the records underneath.

“I’m assuming there’s some modern nonsensical song you want me to listen to?” Sherlock drawled and Joan emerged triumphant with a record in hand and set to placing it down.

“Not one record, babe. I’m taking a full-scale musical education,” Joan smirked as she set the needle down and the sound of drums and tambourines filled with small apartments. “Lesson one; The Mamas and the Papas.”

“That’s an absurd name,” she said through a mouth full of cheese. “Listen to their voices; they’re clearly in their mid-twenties, unlikely any of them have parented children.”

But Joan wasn’t listening, dancing with herself around the middle of the small apartment and singing aloud. “I’ve been for a walk, for a walk, on a winter’s day- c’mon Sherlock, the harmony is easy, you just repeat after me,” she cajoled and Sherlock glared at her from her perch.

“You look ridiculous,” she said instead as Joan spun in a circle and fully ignored her. “He knows I’m gonna stay, California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.”

“These lyrics are inane,” Sherlock muttered, grumbling as she tried to finish her pasta before Joan slid over and took it right out of her hands. “Oh for god’s sake-“

“If I didn’t tell her, I could leave today,” Joan sang right over her protests and she dragged her off the couch and twirled her around. “Californa dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.”

“They actually rhymed day with day, such lyrical creativity, I see why this is so vital to my education,” Sherlock drawled but at this point it was only for appearances as she pulled back and led Joan in a twirl of her own. Joan beamed at her as though she’d done something really clever and Sherlock felt it hit somewhere low in her belly.

 “Look at you, having fun. I’m so proud, I’m practically bursting,” Joan teased her and Sherlock rolled her eyes. The song changed, something more gentle and romantic, and a chorus of _la la las_ floated across the tiny apartment. Joan spun her under her arm and then pulled her in.

“There is a rose in Spanish Harlem,” she sang, nearly to herself, “a red rose in Spanish Harlem. With eyes as black as coal-“

“Coal!” Sherlock shouted, pulling back abruptly and the record skipped a track as the jump shook the stand. “Oh that is genius, of course it was coal, no one would ever suspect-“

“Careful, you scratched it, idiot,” Joan said, walking over to lift the needle but she was smiling as she said it, watching Sherlock’s brain run away from her.

“We need to go back to the corner store, see if they’ll let us take a look at their shipping records,” Sherlock rattled off, mouth moving a mile a minute. Joan, bless her, was already starting for the coat-rack.

“It’ll be closed soon, let’s go,” she prompted and Sherlock rushed over to pull her boots on, holding Joan’s hand for support. “You mind telling me again what we’re looking for? Not sure I really got it the first time.”

“Coal, Joan, you absolute genius,” Sherlock grinned at her and they were running out without a backwards glance down the narrow stairwell to the street.

 

The cold spell didn’t stop the soccer team, who still came out to practice three times a week as the weather turned ugly and the turf began to freeze over.

Sherlock, despite her protests and whining during their afternoons in the warm library, huddled by their new table near the old heaters, came out too. She sat in her spot, scarf pulled up around her nose, and did her sums to the soothing sounds of Joan cursing at a squadron of shivering girls.

“You really don’t have to come,” Joan said to her one evening after practice, the heat from her shower curling around the locker room, restoring feeling to Sherlock’s spider-fingers. “Don’t get me wrong, I love having you here. But I was watching you today- you were wearing three scarves.”

“If it looks ridiculous, but it works, then it’s not ridiculous,” she said back, plaiting and unplaiting the bottom of her hair to keep her hands moving. She needed a cut, the tangle of her curls was getting miserable, but right now it was still another source of warmth. “I loathe repetition, Joan, so I’ll let you answer this one yourself.”

She heard the water turn off and Joan came out, waiting until she was wrapped in a towel and Sherlock was looking at her again to grin knowingly.

“You are such a softie,” she teased, already pulling back to avoid the hair tug she knew was coming. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. So long as you keep cheering for us at our games.”

On the first Saturday of December, the Bushwhick girls soccer team won their very first soccer game against a prep school from Midwood. They made uniforms out of repurposed football jerseys from two seasons previous, invented hand-signs to mask Joan’s more colorful swears, took careful sips from a flask Marcie smuggled in to stay warm between plays and trounced the prep-school girls 3-1.

Sherlock cheered for all three goals.

After they’d all rushed the field, and Joan had been lifted and paraded on her teammates shoulders into the locker room, Sherlock following along by the twist of Joan’s hand. After Joan had made a rousing speech about perseverance and dedication, she’d straightened up on the bench she’d been standing on and declared, “Let’s get fuckin blitzed!”

The afterparty was at Kelsie’s house. It was a bring-your-own beer type of party and it felt like half the school had crammed themselves into the Petroni’s small apartment, spilling out into the hallway outside and onto the fire escape facing the alleyway. Sherlock was dragged in with Joan’s arm warm and heavy around her shoulder, the blonde already on her second beer since the locker room and carrying a pack of four more.

“I’m just gonna go put these in the kitchen,” Joan said, disappearing with a squeeze to her shoulder and then Sherlock was alone in the living room. Someone had turned on the record player and music was blaring across the house with a few people trying to dance to it. Couples occupied most of the couches- with prime spots going to members of the victorious team and their boyfriends. She smelled smoke off on the fireplace and her fingers itched with the desire for a cigarette. She hadn’t indulged in months, money had been tight since they’d had their rent raised, but she was practically part of the team- surely _someone_ would give her a smoke-

“Sherlock, you came!” a voice yelled loudly in her ear and Sherlock suddenly found herself in the arms of Marcie.

“I certainly wasn’t going to miss the indoors part of the evening,” she said back, feeling a bit unsteady and Marcie laughed a hint too loud- three beers in then.

“Yeah, you were our very own cheerleader out there,” the smaller girl smiled and Sherlock rattled through possible snarky comebacks before realizing Marcie wasn’t being sarcastic at all. Instead she shrugged, stuffing her hands in her jean pockets.

“Come on, let’s get you a drink,” Marcie declared, leading her to the kitchen. Sherlock expected to see Joan there but she didn’t spot a mop of blonde amongst the sea of people mixing drinks and chatting up against the fridge. Kelsie was perched on her counter by the sink, making small-talk with a girl standing between her legs, but she grinned wide at the sight of Sherlock.

“Hey Sherly, welcome!” she called out and the girl between her legs- one of the pencil-pushers with her hair always back in neat bun- waved as well. “Help yourself to whatever.”

“I’m not really a drinker-“ she started to protest but Marcie waved her off.

“Just a small one. Cammy will set you up,” she insisted, nudging Sherlock over to the counter where Cammy, a girl Sherlock recognized from various placed about school with kinky hair in a pleated dress, was mixing drinks from the mess of assorted alcohol before her.

“Sherlock, yeah?” Cammy checked, reaching for a half-empty bottle of gin stolen from someone’s parents’ liquor cabinet. “Let me make you a gin and tonic; think you’ll like it. Dry and direct, like you.”

Sherlock laughed in spite of herself. “You played very well today,” she offered politely. Cammy served as goalie.

“Thanks,” Cammy said, sticking a smaller cup facedown in the first to form a makeshift tumbler. “Could barely see with the wind but we held our own. Wish those private school assholes could have heard a good Captain Watson swear-streak though; we woulda won in minutes.”

It was very odd to find herself not included in the moniker ‘private school asshole.’ “It would have made for some excellent entertainment at the very least,” she offered, fidgeting awkwardly with herself.  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kelsie lean down to take the jaw of the girl between her legs in her own hands and the two began kissing slowly, almost methodically. Cammy made a noise and Sherlock spun back, blushing as she realized she’d been caught staring.

“Yeah, not really subtle, are they?” Cammy agreed and Sherlock gave a small nod. “Though I coulda sworn Nancy wasn’t a dyke.”

Nancy, formerly known as girl-between Kelsie’s legs, had started running her palms up and down Kelsie’s calves until Kelsie tightened them around Nany’s waist and their kissing sped up almost instantly.

“You never seen two girls kiss before?” Cammy teased and Sherlock flashed back, almost instantly, to Joan in the bar with that ridiculous model of a woman, Mary, and hated the way her body clenched with it.

“Don’t know why they need to be so public about it,” she bit off instead and Cammy handed her a cup with a knowing glance.

“No one ever tells straight couples to take their kissing inside,” Cammy said mildly and Sherlock nodded once in acknowledgement and then seemed at a loss for anything else to say, taking a sip in awkwardness and coughing immediately.

 “Oh calm down, I barely put any gin in that,” Cammy said but she was smiling so Sherlock knew she wasn’t in trouble.

“Where’d you learn to mix drinks?” Sherlock asked, because she had a feeling that was what people did, and took another, smaller sip of her drink.

“Read a book,” Cammy said and Sherlock honestly wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. “Plus I’m studying chemistry. Be a shame if I couldn’t even make a vodka soda.”

“You’re studying chemistry?” Sherlock said, brightening with interest and then doing the sort of sweep she’d forgotten to do initially in her uncomfortableness. “Right yes, of course, father a doctor, mother an engineer, always a high-achieving family.”

Cammy paused, turned away to take someone’s order and for a second Sherlock was sure she’d fucked this up too, but then she turned back with a small grin. “Right yeah. Joan said you do that. Well come on, how’d you do it?”

 Cammy was surprisingly a warm conversationalist, nodding appropriately at Sherlock’s deductions of her, the others in the kitchen and even confirming a few wild guesses. Before she realized, she’d been in the kitchen nearly an hour and had finished her whole drink.

“I really ought to find Joan,” she said with a start, she hadn’t thought of Joan for a good twenty minutes, and Cammy didn’t look surprised.

“You want a drink for the road?” she offered but Sherlock shook her head. She really wasn’t a drinker, no use adding another addiction atop her older, still scarred habits. “It was lovely chatting with you, Sherlock.”

 “You too,” Sherlock said and was surprised to realize she meant it. She tended to think of all of them, the dyke squad, the soccer team, the feminist club, as Joan’s friends and her acquaintances by association but it appeared the line wasn’t so clearly drawn. She did spend most of her waking hours in company of some form or another with these girls, it stood to reason she’d somehow find herself with-

Friends. Her, Sherlock Holmes, with a large enough group of girls to fill a Bushwhick apartment who didn’t want to hit her, or get her expelled, but make her drinks and chat with her in poorly-lit kitchens. Unexpected to the extreme.

She wandered for a bit from the kitchen to the hallway, even peeking out on the fire escape, before finding Joan on one of the overstuffed couches under a cloud of smoke, coughing a little and smiling from ear to ear. She walked over and stood above Joan for a solid minute or so before the blonde turned and caught sight of her.

“Heeeeey Sherlock,” Joan beamed up at her from the sofa. “You look lovely up there, all covered in light.”

“Are you,” Sherlock froze before her nose proved her right and then wrinkled up distastefully, “high right now?”

“Just a teensy weesy little bit,” Joan giggled to herself. “Why, you wanna smoke with us?”

Sherlock had absolutely no desire to do any such thing. Weed wasn’t a new thing; it had always been available back at her private boarding school. It just had a distinct _wetback_ feel to it. Simply put, it was a scholarship-girl hobby. Girls with money who wanted narcotics tended to choose cocaine, or heroin if they wanted to look rebellious and properly ‘slumming it.’ Sherlock had considered the whole thing infantile and a ridiculous allocation of spending money until someone had clued her in to the bliss-inducing, memory-altering effects of heroin and the work-all-night, sleep-when-dead properties of cocaine but that was a different Sherlock, in a different city.

 Joan now, in this city with this Sherlock a year-and a half sober, seemed fully blissed out, her eyes half closed and her mouth stretched in a permanent smile as her head drooped to rest on the breast of the girl squished in next to her- Grace or something religious.

“Hm, this is nice, whose is this?” Joan murmured, still giggling, as she rolled her check on said breast and the owner of it only laughed and ran an affectionate hand through Joan’s mop of blonde.

“Not a chance in hell, Watson,” Grace, it was probably Grace, said and something in Sherlock that she hadn’t even realized had twisted unfurled all at once.

“Shame, I have been informed I am a most excellent lover,” Joan said, taking care to pronounce each syllable so as to not sound overly high and sounding twice as high for it in the process. “It’s true. Babes have lined up just to mess around with me.”

“Just rest, sweetheart,” Grace hummed, still petting Joan’s hair and the blonde began giggling helplessly to herself.

“Sure sure, I’ll just rest here on this breast, haha!” she laughed, pleased beyond measure at her own little rhyme. “I am a poet. Take that Allen Rosenburg.”

“Ginsburg,” Sherlock corrected, unable to stop herself, and Joan’s head shot up to face her.

“Sherlock!” she cheered, so full of joy that Sherlock nearly staggered with it. “I thought you left. Come here babe, come cuddle with me.”

“Not on me, you’re not,” Grace warned as if Sherlock had any intention of doing so. The track playing switched suddenly to something with a firm, insistent baseline and Joan nearly leapt off the sofa before staggering into Sherlock’s steadying hands.

“I love this song!” she yelled, although she was already right next to Sherlock’s ear. “You have to dance with me Sherly, come on.”

 Without so much as a by-your-leave Joan had somehow managed to flip their hands so Sherlock was no longer supporting her but being dragged by her to the little makeshift dancefloor over by the record-player, yelling, for no apparent reason, “Sheepdog,” as they rushed over.

Joan grabbed both her hands and began dancing them somewhat violently about before pulling Sherlock into her for some kind of twist-tango combination. “Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles,” she sang, and now her eyes were bright and alight with that same joy, whether it was for the music or for Sherlock, the genius was unsure. “what makes you think you’re something special when you smile?”

They were pressed so close together; Sherlock could feel the brush of Joan’s breasts through their sweaters; could feel the heat of her palm on the small of her back. Sober, ever-affectionate Joan still was never this close but now, drunk and high, Joan seemed content to put all of herself in Sherlock’s space, smothering her in hands and the soft planes of her body. Sherlock felt overwhelmed but not trapped, found herself unconsciously pushing back into the firm press of Joan’s hands.

“What on earth is this racket?” Sherlock asked, coming even closer so she didn’t need to shout over the din of the music and the party and Joan actually stopped moving.

“You’re joking,” she insisted, as the music played on around them. “You’re fucking with me. I know you’ve lived a sheltered life where music is concerned but you want to tell me you’ve never heard of The Beatles?”

Sherlock swallowed and then, tactically, tried her hand at a joke. “What kind of beetle? The silver beetles-“

Joan laughed out loud. “You’re not half wrong,” she smirked and Sherlock had the distinct impression she was missing something. “Okay, remind me I gotta start taking this musical education business more seriously,” she promised, pulling Sherlock back in and dancing around with her to the beat. “In the meantime, this is The Beatles, only the greatest band to ever grace our mortal Earth and this is my favorite song from Yellow Submarine. Your genius brain okay with that much so far?”

“Managing so far,” Sherlock agreed and Joan gave her the same smile that made her insides swoop down to somewhere nearer to her knees. It didn’t help to have Joan so warm, clinging to her with her small, sturdy hands, the fingers of her left tapping out the rhythm of the song on Sherlock’s wrist.

“Great, now let’s see if you can learn the chorus,” Joan said before singing at the top of her lungs,” You can talk to me, you can talk to me-e; when you’re lonely you can talk to me!”

“Who can talk to him, the bulldog?” Sherlock asked, genuinely confused. “There are so many issues with that, mainly that a bulldog cannot speak to non-dogs and that he certainly wouldn’t conceptualize loneliness the same way-“

“Sherlock?” Joan said and Sherlock met her gaze to find the blonde smiling and on the better side of high again. “I changed my mind, just shut up and dance with me.”

 

Sherlock woke up with a start in her own bed, still fully clothed after coming home closer to one last night to a Mycroft who couldn’t figure out if he should look disappointed by her late-coming or wholly relieved that she’d somehow been invited to an actual party with other children her age. A quick look at her watch confirmed it was just past 12, and Joan had wanted her to come wake her up whenever she managed out of her stupor. A quick shower and change into something big and soft, all her edges felt raw, and she bounded out of the apartment and down the stairs before bounding right back up to make Joan a cup of coffee in a mug that, come to think of it, she’d actually stolen from Joan.

The blonde opened her apartment door only after the third time Sherlock knocked and the genius held out the mug as a peace offering. Joan looked horrific, hair an unreasonable tangle, black eye makeup smeared across the side of her face and the crust of what had to be drool under her bottom lip. Sherlock held back a giggle and said, with as must seriousness as she could muster, “Good morning.”

“Fuck your good morning,” Joan groaned at her, shambling over to receive the offered coffee. “I have six hours to get over this hangover before we have to catch a train into the city. You comin tonight?”

“Don’t see why not,” Sherlock agreed against her better judgement as Joan took the loudest sip of coffee she’d ever heard. She had no desire to go; the night would be spent mostly in planning for the march on Washington the following month and she couldn’t afford to have another public panic attack but there didn’t seem to be a way out of it that wouldn’t come off as suspicious.

Unless- “Go get ready,” she instructed, rooting around in her pocket until she found enough for a paper. “I’m going to run down, I expect you in the shower when I get back.”

“Guhhmp,” Joan mumbled into her coffee, which Sherlock took as an encouraging sign and she took the stairs two at a time. All she needed was a case, small enough to be wrapped up in time for school tomorrow- Joan would never consent to missing a Monday lecture, not when she was already struggling in chemistry- but big enough to take up the whole day.

 

She came back with paper triumphant in hand and the perfect little arson case that they could have settled by midnight, one am at the latest. “Put your plans on hold!” she announced, striding into the apartment and to a Joan, now with her hair piled high in a wet bun still dripping down her neck and in a men’s button-down and workman’s pants, sat down at the kitchen table with a half-eaten bowl of cereal. “I have a case!”

“Where?” Joan, and god didn’t that make the skin on Sherlock’s arms stand up, her body feel too big for its own skin, said standing up and walking over to collect her shoes. “And what?”

“Fire right over in Long Island. Started in the garbage dump and spread to the house next door,” Sherlock said, barely having to fake her excitement. It really was a clever little puzzle.

“Fires start in dumpsites all the time.” Joan, clever Joan, pointed out and Sherlock was practically vibrating out of her clothes.

“Not last night they don’t,” she said. “You may have been ‘blitzed’ out of your mind but surely you noticed what we walked home in.”

“Rain,” Joan said, her smile coming out in full and this was Sherlock’s favorite part- not the clues or the chase, beloved as they were, but these moments when Joan looked at her like she’d hung the moon, like she was the cleverest trick she’d ever seen and she never wanted it to end.

“Oh fuck, we better go, it’ll take us ages to get the train out there,” Joan cursed and they were off, arms brushing, the same excitement about them and who needed marches and Washington when they could have _this?_

That was, until, just past 7pm as they stood happily helping each other root through garbage, when Joan glanced at her watch and jumped right out of the neat pile they’d created.

“Fuck, Sherlock, we gotta go- it’ll take us ages to get downtown from here,” she swore, brushing waste off her jeans.

“Why?” Sherlock asked, having genuinely forgotten for a minute why she’d been hell-bent on distracting them all day before it all suddenly rushed back to her. _Fuck_.

“The meeting, Sherlock, the big important planning one. Kelsie and Marcie are probably ready to murder us, I hope they left without us.”

“Joan I-“ Sherlock froze at the multitude of fully un-Sherlock things her mouth insisted she say, _I don’t want to go, stay with me, it’s no fun solving mysteries without you, just thinking of that meeting makes my stomach feel too small, makes me close to tears and I can’t tell you why._

“I can’t leave a mystery half-solved,” is what she settled on and yes, that was sufficiently Sherlock, enough so that Joan looked at her with understanding rather than anger _or pity, kill us before it’s pity_.

“Will you be alright if I leave?” Joan asked, looking genuinely conflicted and Sherlock wanted to scream no with everything in her and held it back with only the bite of her teeth.

“Of course, I’m nearly done here anyway,” she said, mostly the truth in any case.

Joan smiled at her across the mound of garbage between them and how did she look beautiful, even here, a banana peel stuck to her elbow. “It’s an insurance scam, isn’t it?” she asked and Sherlock couldn’t help the grin of pride that spread across her face. “I’ve lived in Bushwhick my whole life, Ms. Holmes, I know a thing or two about fraud.”

“I’ll let you know how it goes,” Sherlock promised and Joan clambered over to give her a quick hug before jogging towards the exit.

“You had better,” she threatened and then Sherlock watched her run away into the retreating darkness, waist-deep in garbage. Some metaphors were too obvious for even her to make.  

 

Sherlock let herself into the apartment- still quiet at only eleven- and toed off her shoes before heading straight for the bathroom. The water always took ages to warm up and in the meantime she took her hair out of the messy bun she’d kept it stored in all day and set to brushing out all the wind tangles. It had come time, she decided on the train home clutching the fire-starter in a neat plastic bag and desperately missing Joan’s warm body besides her, to deal with this whole ridiculous mess nestled around her heart.

What was going on, between her and Joan? Joan was touchy, yes, and affectionate with her hair ruffles and hand holding and all pressed against each other at parties and on trains- all signs her crush on Sherlock had yet to fully fade. That was standard but what wasn’t was Sherlock’s reaction to it all. She should be feeling annoyed or, at most generous, resigned to the touching and sweet words but instead she felt-

How did she feel?

Showered and ensconced in a towel, Sherlock settled herself on the couch to braid her hair into two pigtails and think. Getting in touch with her emotions was never really her strong suit but, needs must. So she liked it when Joan touched her. What did that mean?

_We are touch-deprived_ she considered. _Naturally we should be above something so basic but, it’s possible we are feeling effects of that. Joan is merely satisfying a physical need. Nothing more complicated than that._

_And the compliments?_ She countered and again her mind supplied a logical answer. _All beings crave praise. The problem is not that we enjoy Joan’s praise, it’s that we crave praise at all- like some dumb show animal. Something to work on, then._

_So then it should follow,_ she suggested gently, testing the waters _that the solution would be to cease contact with Joan._

Just as predicted, alarms began to sound in her head. _Let’s not be too hasty_ her mind insisted and Sherlock let out an almighty sigh. It wasn’t general at all. It was very Joan-specific.

“I see I’ve caught you at a time of great crisis,” a voice said that was not inside her head and Sherlock jumped, opening her eyes to find Mycroft standing in the doorway with the beginnings of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “But might I urge you, sister-mine, to finish your mental musings in your pajamas? It’s starting to get quite cold.”

“Shut up,” she managed to shoot back and the corners of Mycroft’s mouth twitched in response. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Your left braid is crooked,” Mycroft said in response and, toeing off his own shoes, he padded over to sit beside her on the couch. Wordlessly, she inclined her head so he could undo the braid and start it over, twisting the strands neatly from the crown of her head.

“I confess, I didn’t expect to see you home until late tonight,” he mentioned, the Mycroft version of a question. Neither of them bothered to qualify why he’d think that; Sherlock knew she’d left an NYRF flyer peeking out of her bag as much as Mycroft knew to take that for the hint it was.

“The agenda for today was to plan for the march on Washington to hear the verdict on Roe v Wade,” Sherlock offered, impressed with how steady her voice stayed, and she felt Mycroft’s hands still in her hair for just a beat before they resumed their task.

“I was recently reading about that in the paper,” he said mildly. “I must say, I’m surprised you’ve taken up so quickly with the radicals.” It was a topic change, an offering if she chose to accept it, if she’d decided that she didn’t actually want to have this conversation, wanting to yell and rave at her brother instead, but she didn’t take it.

“I wanted to go,” she said, wincing as Mycroft pulled a bit too hard on a knot. He lightened his pulls in a silent apology and she tried again. “Tonight. But I couldn’t. And I know that makes me weak but still I lied.”

Mycroft said nothing as he tied up the braid and then shifted on the couch so they could make eye contact, if they wanted to. Neither did. “Sherlock-“ he started, swallowed, and then started again.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he offered uselessly, redundantly, but it loosened something in her. “It seems absurd to call that weakness though; wanting to take care of yourself. To feel safe.”

Sherlock felt the edges of her eyes start to itch and she swiped at them viciously before stuffing her hands in her lap. _I still don’t feel safe_ she thought bitterly, her whole body vibrating. _It’s been over a year and I still don’t feel safe here. I still see him-_ “in my dreams,” she said softly aloud. “He’s still in my dreams,” and it was a confession even though they both knew. Even though the walls in this apartment were so thin, it was impossible he didn’t hear her screaming when she woke up- 3 am in a blind panic.

She felt Mycroft shift, as though reaching for her, but no touch came. Outside the window she could hear the couple across the way talking softly in Italian, the parents two doors down beginning to argue, a baby somewhere starting to cry but inside the apartment was silent.

“You can’t protect me, Myc,” she whispered into the quiet. “No one can. Safety is an illusion; we’re both clever enough to know that. “

Mycroft said nothing. She didn’t need to look to know what he was thinking, running a thousand different things to say in response and finding all of them lacking. “Sherlock,” he said gently but stopped after her name. What else could he possibly say- he who had given up everything to protect her. She’d fled but he’d left of his own volition, had abandoned everything he’d worked his whole life for to try and keep her safe and still, it would never be enough.

Unconsciously, his eyes went to the scar on her left side, just peeking out from underneath her towel and she bristled, tugging the white cloth up as far as it would go. “I don’t regret leaving, sister-mine,” he murmured, as always reading her mind. “It wasn’t…productive for either of us. You didn’t force my hand.”

“I know,” she bit off but still, it was good to hear it in his voice, rather than her own inside her head.

They sat there on the couch in silence, the seconds ticking by across the kitchen clock, neither of them saying anything but neither of them moving either, neither of them leaving.

 

On Monday the 11th, Joan cornered her outside her locker as she was sorting out her books for the day, and leaned on it in a way that made it impossible for her to reach around.

“Can I help you?” Sherlock asked, oddly patient. They’d spent all of Saturday constructing a trap for the guy who’d been mugging everyone over by the Myrtle Street station and she’d spent nearly all of Sunday unconscious, only waking when Mycroft came in to force her to eat.

“Hey, so, I was thinking,” Joan started, fixing her hair behind her ear- a nervous habit Sherlock only ever saw her do in bars, “do you want to maybe come over tonight and watch the moon landing?”

“What a fucking line, Watson,” Kelsie drawled as she walked past, bumping Joan’s shoulder with her own.

Joan turned a deep crimson and turned around to call out, “Fuck you very much,” at Kelsie’s retreating wave, before turning back to Sherlock and re-adjusting her backpack. “Sorry about- well, I meant it, is all. If you want to. You don’t have to sleep over if you’re not comfortable but it’s happening pretty late and it’s probably not such a good idea for you to walk home alone then.”

Mycroft would most likely walk over to Joan’s to escort her back if she called him, but something about that seemed vaguely unappealing, even though it ended with her getting to sleep in her own bed. “Yes, alright, I don’t see why not. I’ll just pick up a change of clothes from my house before we go,” she shrugged and Joan smiled back at her, her initial, still unexplained nervousness gone.

“Cool, awesome, right so, see you at lunch,” she said, bounding off down the hall to her own first period, leaving Sherlock standing there as the bell rang feeling oddly like she missed something.

 

After school Joan was waiting by her locker with that same, nervous grin on her face but when Sherlock snapped “What’s going on?” Joan quickly wiped it away.

“I’m just excited,” she said. “Moon landing, and our very first sleepover.”

“Yes, Yes, what a large step for mankind,” Sherlock drawled, packing up her backpack and leading them out of the building. Kelsie and some of the dyke squad were perched on the steps outside, smoking in the cool air and laughing about something. At the sight of the two of them, someone wolf-whistled and Kelsie let out a cry of “Sherly!”

“What do you assholes want?” Joan bit off and Sherlock froze, nervous she’d done something before realizing this was a joke, they were all joking. This was friendship then.

“You treat our girl right, Sherly, you hear me? Give her a good seeing-to,” a girl in a biker jacket whose real name Sherlock didn’t know but whom everyone called ‘Baby’ called and Joan laughed.

“You need a good seeing-to, Baby,” she threatened with a smile. “Why don’t you invite me over sometime, yeah?”

“Joan, your girl’s standing right there!” Baby shouted in mock-offence and Sherlock nearly jumped as Joan wrapped a warm arm around her shoulders.

“Fuck off, all of you,” Joan said warmly, already turning away. “We’re gonna go watch the moon landing.”

“Sounds like a fancy way of saying you’re gonna go watch some submarine racing,” Kelsie said and the pack of girls erupted into howls as Joan kept walking forward, the middle finger of her free hand waving goodbye. She waited until they’d turned the corner before releasing Sherlock and the genius resolutely stamped out the thought that she missed the warmth.

“I’m sorry about that,” Joan said sheepishly as they waited to cross the street towards Sherlock’s building. “And about them in general. I know it must make you uncomfortable; I can ask them to stop.”

“It’s fine,” Sherlock said quickly and then thought about it a minute. For all its ridiculousness and falsity, there was something…good about people thinking she and Joan were together. About people assuming that she, Sherlock, was not just capable and worthy of love but of star-student, captain, school hero Joan Watson’s love. “I don’t mind, really.”

“Oh, alright then,” Joan said, sounding somewhat surprised, before continuing on in companionable silence. They had just turned the corner to Sherlock’s block when a question occurred to her.

“Joan?” she asked and the blonde hummed to indicate she was paying attention. “What’s a submarine race?”

Joan coughed suddenly and began turning, despite the cold, a bright fuzzy pink. “It’s real dumb. Trust me, it doesn’t matter.”

Sherlock didn’t press; she’d figure it out herself in a matter of days and they’d reached her apartment anyway. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said, rooting around in her bag for her key.

“Alright, you want me to come in with you?”

“No, it’ll be quick,” Sherlock said; the thought of Joan standing in her moldy-ceiling, sometimes bedroom kitchen made her somewhat queasy. She let herself into the building and ran up to her apartment, stuffing a toothbrush, pajamas, and a change of clothes into her backpack before pausing in the kitchen to scribble _sleeping by Joan_ on a piece of paper and sticking it under the phone before racing back down to find Joan waiting for her right where she’d left her, one eyebrow raised in the universal sign for impressed.

“Not bad at all,” she said and off they went.

For the most part, it was an evening just like all their other evenings. Joan made dinner, Sherlock feigned reluctance but cleared her plate, Joan put on some music- “Come on Sherlock, not even the Rolling Stones?”- and forced her to dance a bit in her socks, all too much touching and not enough heat.

But there was something different about it too, something in the thrill of watching it get darker and darker outside until the clock read long past their usual hour and Joan excused herself to change into pajamas in her bedroom, coming out in sweatpants and a vest and politely pretending she didn’t know Sherlock had taken the time to snoop through her mail.

“You wanna change while I mess with the TV?” Joan suggested and Sherlock did, surprised at how at-home she felt in the little purple bedroom despite rarely ever going in here. When she came out, the news was on softly in preparation for the big event and Joan was sat cross-legged on the floor by the coffee table, rolling a joint.

“Shouldn’t be more than an hour now,” Joan said, looking up and noticing Sherlock paused by the threshold to the living room. “Hey, you alright?”

“I didn’t realize you smoke,” Sherlock said, _stupid_ surprised at how she hadn’t managed to pick that up but yet, looking at Joan again in light of all this she couldn’t see where she went wrong- there was simple no sign of it-

“I never do, really,” Joan explained warmly and yes, of course, how was she supposed to predict from outlier data. “Too expensive and just as bad for your lungs as regular cigarettes. Jodie gave me about an eighth on Saturday night though and it felt rude not to finish it. Are you uncomfortable with me smoking? I really don’t have to; I’m sure Marcie would be thrilled if I gave her the rest.”

 “No I don’t-“ _care_ she’d been about to say but that was lie, why was it a lie? Joan patted the area next to her on the floor and unthinking, she padded over and sat down, the smell stronger and somehow not as threatening up close. Joan, clever Joan, was already putting it all back, joint and all, in the ziploc baggie it’d come in and sealing it up close.

“I’m sorry,” she said somewhat uselessly and Joan reached out to rub her socked ankle.

“Don’t be, you’re saving me from lung cancer,” Joan said with that same, gentle, patient smile and Sherlock felt ready to rip her own skin off. Joan didn’t ask, would never ask, or press, or make her feel obligated in any way and all that did was make her feel _more_ obligated- to give something back, at the very least.

“I was- an addict- a few years back,” she said before she could stop herself and Joan very deliberately did not stop rubbing her bony ankle.

“Back in Rhode Island,” Joan asked pleasantly, did _not_ ask ‘you would have been fourteen a few years ago, or thirteen, isn’t that rather young for a drug habit?’ or anything so hateful as that.

“Yes,” she said finally, trying hard not to regret this little slice of honesty. “Not like this, though.”

“More expensive drugs?” Joan asked and Sherlock nodded. Joan’s fingers were a steady pressure on her ankle, back and forth, never hesitating for a second. “When did you get clean?”

“When we moved,” she said, rather than _when we became poor_ or _when the impetus for the drug use was no longer around_. All at once she wanted this conversation to be over, wanted to stop feeling so exposed, so flayed, even though she’d offered the knife herself.

“Your mother doesn’t live here anymore, does she?” she said instead, lashing out, changing the topic like a car changing directions mid-freeway and damn the casualties. This time, Joan’s hand did pause on her ankle but it started up again before she could swallow her own tongue, back and forth like nothing had changed.

“Go on, tell me how you figured it,” Joan said, even-toned and Sherlock did- the mail, the unwashed sheets on the living room bed, the bone-dry shoes by the door just for show and, of course, “-I’ve been coming here nearly every night for three weeks and I’ve yet to see her.”

“Maybe she comes home once you’ve already left; too tired to change her sheets and wearing different shoes?”

“You never make enough for leftovers,” Sherlock said with an air of finality. “If your mother was still living here, when you made dinner, you’d make enough to leave some for her when she gets home. You only ever make enough for us.”

Joan sighed, turning to stare at the TV. “She hasn’t lived here in almost a year. Her new husband doesn’t like me very much, me or Harry, likes to pretend we don’t exist. She lives over on the Upper West Side with him and sends me money for rent and food every month.” Joan’s mouth was a small line, her body a heavy curve. “It’s not so terrible, really. A bit like living on your own without having to worry about working three jobs to survive.”

“Harry was supposed to help take care of you,” Sherlock said before realizing perhaps it was one of those things people didn’t like being reminded of. But Joan only gave a small nod, still not quite meeting her eye.

“Harry was too big for glorified babysitting in Bushwhick,” Joan said with only a light touch of malice, so light Joan herself probably didn’t even realize it was there. “She did what she had to for her own sanity; I don’t begrudge her it.”

Sherlock thought about Joan, fresh from the hot rejection of a mother choosing her new lover over her own daughters, watching yet another family member meant to protect her leave her behind. She was always, in a dark, shameful part of herself, aware that she ought to be more grateful of Mycroft but suddenly she felt a flare of deep _affection?_ for her brother well up inside her- he who had every reason to abandon her but had done the very opposite, who’d loved her despite, or maybe because.  

“Were you just going to keep telling me she was away for work?” Sherlock asked _stupid_ but caught with nothing else to say that felt big enough, or ready in any way to hold all these pieces.

“I figured you’d suss it out on your own and save me the trouble,” Joan said, a smile hiding somewhere in the corner of her mouth and it was just then that a commotion began on the TV and both girls spun around to take it in.

Joan lunged to raise the volume and the man on the TV was suddenly saying “-right now, at the NASA center in Houston we are watching Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt step foot on the surface of the moon- let’s take a look-“

And there it was, on the TV, a man lost in the folds of a white marshmallow of a suit but still very much a man, stepping foot on the surface of the moon. She remembered the first moon landing, now three years ago and oh god was it possible to have such different nights.

Her mother had decided they’d make a family night of it, had demanded all of their presences in the family living room, not the one reserved for company but the one with the pale white rug and the statement color-tv. It had been July and Mycroft had been home- things were easier, caught in suspended animation. Still, she’d sat on the floor rather than between her parents on the couch and felt her father’s eyes on her back the whole time; she’d hardly been able to watch. Her upper thighs, hidden beneath a long, stiff skirt, had been a mess of bruises- it had hurt, then, to sit on the floor- the palms of her hands still a rough red but she’d gritted her teeth and done it anyway, daring anyone to say anything.

She’d barely even watched the landing, the TV had made her dizzy- running on no food and crushed ketamine.

Now though, now with Joan’s warm rice inside her stomach, with Joan’s warm thigh pressed against hers as they turned to better see the screen- her body whole and hers and thrumming with energy, she felt those very steps in her own skin; watched with her eyes full wide in wonderment like it was the very first time she’d ever seen a man leave Earth so fully behind.

“It really is incredible,” Joan murmured beside her and Sherlock didn’t even tell her off for such an obvious comment.

“This has gotta be one of the most proud moments of my life, I guarantee ya,” the marshmallow man was saying over the sound of crackle and static and Sherlock, just slightly, let her weight rest against Joan’s arm alongside hers. Before she could fully register it, Joan’s palm had snuck forward and captured her hand, weaving their fingers together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apollo 17 was the very last manned mission to the moon and did, in fact, occur on December 11th, 1972. It actually occurred closer to 7pm but that didn't feel like late enough at night for some deep, soulful confessions. But, honestly, New York gets dark early in the winter so- read it however you'd like it.   
> You can watch that moon landing [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjWiMYr6XDA) if you like those kinds of things.
> 
> Submarine racing was a phrase more common to the fifties than to the early seventies but I think it's genius so deal with it. Guys would drive their dates out to secluded points to 'watch the submarines race'- an activity that is physically impossible and therefor diverts no attention from the actual goal of making out.
> 
> The music mentioned, in case you want to listen while you read (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)  
> [California Dreamin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-aK6JnyFmk)  
> [Hey Bulldog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vbJQ-MrKo)


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